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AN 



INQUIRY INTO SCRIPTURAL 



AND 



ANCIENT SERVITUDE, 



IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT NEITHER WAS 



CHATTEL SLAVERY; 



WITH 



THE REMEDY FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY. 



BY E. SMITH, 

MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL. 



MANSFIELD, OHIO: 

PUBLISHED BT THE AUTHOR AT THE WESTERN BRANCH BOOK CON- 
CERN OF THE WESLEYAN METHODIST CONNECTION OF AMERICA. 

1852. 



\ • 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year of our 
Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two, by E. Smith, 
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for 
the District of Ohio. 



*A 5 4 \ 



WILLIAM H. 8HAIN, 
H«>3<» 8i'£RJBOTTPJS FOCXDRT. 



PREFACE, 



The following pages contain the result of the author's 
investigations of what the Holy Scriptures teach on the 
subject of Chattel Slavery, for the last twelve years, as con- 
cisely stated as possible. He has read much in defense of 
the Holy Scriptures against the charge of supporting slavery, 
but nothing that has, in .his judgment, set their teachings 
in the true light. He is well aware that he has taken much 
higher ground than has been taken by anti-slavery men, 
and asks a candid examination of the proof brought to sus- 
tain it, and the reasonings on £hat proof. He has been 
convinced for several years, that there never was a slave- 
holder in the church of God, either under the patriarchal, 
Jewish, or Christian dispensations, until after the days of 
the Apostles; and that the Great Head of the same never 
allowed one to be in it. .The following pages exhibit the 
proof on which that faith rests. Slavery was prohibited 
by positive law in all nations, from the time of Noah 
until after the days of Moses, and had not found its way 
into Asia Minor at the time christian churches were planted 
there, and the epistles were written to those churches. 
Satisfactory proof of all this will be found in the following 
pages. This is all new ground — outside of all that has 
been attempted on this subject, and if fully established, 
forever settles the question against the slaveholder's right 
to membership in the church of the living God. 



IV PREFACE. 

The remedy provided by the Great Creator for this 
monstrous evil is also presented, and the duty of every 
christian and American citizen, relative to the same, clearly 
shown ; and also the awful consequences of neglecting that 
duty. 

These pages were first published in the Wesleyan Expos- 
itor, a small monthly, edited by the author, and the readers 
of that periodical urged the publication of the numbers on 
slavery in book form. This led to the publication at this 
time. The author has been partially engaged for several 
years preparing a work on Slavery, for the press, which con- 
tains the whole of the following pages, with much other 
information on other branches of the subject. The rise, 
progress and development of Chattel Slavery, among the 
nations of the earth, is exhibited, with the proofs ; and the 
wrongs of different states of chattleism compared, and 
American shown to be " the vilest that ever saw the sun f* 
but has not had time, means or health to complete it, and 
bring it through the press ; and consents to give to the pub- 
lic this extract from it, hoping it may aid in the great bat- 
tle now being fought for the rights of humanity and the 
purification of the church of God, from " the sum of all 
villanies." That it may do good, and aid in the great strug- 
gle for the right, is the fervent prayer of the 

AUTHOB. 

Mansfield, 0., June 27, 1852. 



CHAPTER I. 



BIBLE SERVITUDE, 

Ax Address delivered ix the Sixth Presbtteriax Church, 
Cincinnati, 0., March 19th, 1843. 

Revised and Enlarged. 

(i Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the 
fulfilling of the law." — Romans xiii. 10. 

Much has been said, and much written, of man's 
accountability ; but when all is said that can be, for 
or against, it amounts to this : the Creator has im- 
planted in the heart of every human being a con- 
sciousness of his accountability. There is in the 
mind of every man a living conviction that he is an 
accountable creature, and must answer for his conduct 
to some superior being. This is the fact with all sav- 
age as well as civilized men. This conviction fans 
the flame of all idolatrous altar fires — inflames the 
zeal of all the worshipers of strange gods. The 
Scriptures reveal the nature of this accountability, — 
the great objects to be secured; and also the nature 
and design of the moral government of God. 
1* 



6 

I have selected this text, 1st, to call attention to 
one great object of the divine government, — the great 
object ; and to show that slavery is wholly irreconcil- 
able to this object — to that government. And 2nd, 
to examine those passages of the Holy Scriptures 
which are thought by some persons to favor slavery. • 

All intelligent beings act from motives ; they have 
design in all they do. The great Jehovah is the per- 
fection of all intelligence, and exhibits perfect design 
in all his works. He had design in his divine legis- 
lation, and we now inquire what that design was — ■ 
what was the great object of establishing the moral 
government of the Universe. Some contend it was 
to secure the honor or dignity of the throne of God 
— the rights of divine sovereignty. This is hard to 
maintain, because Jehovah is immutable ; he cannot 
change ; his rights cannot be invaded. What he now 
is, he always was and ever will be. The whole uni- 
verse could not put forth an arm long enough to reach 
even the foundations of his throne. He liveth forever 
deeply interested in the happiness of all his creatures, 
yet perfectly independent of them. While "he can. 
not be tempted," he tempteth no man. He dwells 
beyond temptation's reach. Not so with his crea- 
tures. They are placed in such a variety of circum- 
stances, and their relations to each other are such, 
that the moral government of God is necessary to 
make the possession of the powers with which intelli- 
gent beings are endowed safe to those with whom they 
are connected. The great design of the divine law 



is to make moral agents act right or felicitously to- 
ward each other, and all creatures with whom they 
are connected. Religion does not consist so much in 
what some call devotion to God, as in righteousness 
to man. True devotion is humble obedience. While 
we are to love God with all our hearts, we are to love 
our neighbor as ourselves. The measure of love we 
are to have to our fellows is the love we have to our- 
selves. Self-love renders us incapable of consenting 
for a moment to our own pain or injury. We can 
consent to suffer pain for the sake of gain, but never 
for its own sake. We are wholly incapable of choos- 
ing misery for misery's sake. This is a fixed law of 
mind. And this measure of love the divine law re- 
quires us to have to our neighbor, and we can no 
more consent to his injury than to our own, while 
governed by it. But obedience to the divine law does 
more than this. It brings our powers under contri- 
bution to each other's good — makes them act well on 
our neighbor. 

Actions have tendencies irrespective of any moral 
character which may be given them by law. Were I 
to strike another with my might, that act would in- 
flict pain, had no prohibition been given. Our pow- 
ers may be employed in producing happiness or mis- 
ery; and the great design of the divine law is to 
make them productive of delight. This is the great 
principle established in the text: "Love worketh no 
ill to his neighbor," and therefore fulfils the law. 
What the law requires, love does. Love fills the 



8 

measure of the law which God has given man for the 
government of his whole life; and to work ill to no 
neighbor is at once the obiect and fulfilment of this 
law. The objects of the divine law are to prevent 
misery and to produce happiness. A heart that can 
consent to inflict misery on a fly, is at war with the 
principles of the law of Jehovah, and is unlike the 
Holy One. Now as love fulfils the law because it 
worketh no ill to any neighbor — to any person — its 
great object must be, to make the possession of the 
powers bestowed on man safe to those with whom he 
is associated. 

Permit me to illustrate this position : suppose 
large pipes were placed just over each pew in this 
house, within reach of the people in them, — one 
fdled with scalding water, impregnated with the most 
corroding and caustic substances ; the other with the 
most fragrant odors, as exhilarating as the air of 
heaven, — and stop-cocks in these pipes over each 
person in the house, so that every one might turn a 
key and let in a stream of odor or of scalding coro- 
sive, as he might choose. The hand that turned a 
water key might be the first injured, but not the only 
sufferer. Would it be unreasonable or unjust to pro- 
hibit the actor from injuring himself and those around 
him ? Surely not. 

But suppose these hands cannot be still, that they 
must turn some of these keys, would it not be indis- 
pensable to securo the happiness of those occupying 
trUe house, for him who might be the author of thii 



9 

state of things, to require each hand to turn an odor 
key, to prevent it from turning a hot water one, and 
thus make every hand contribute to its own happiness, 
and the happiness of those with whom it is associated, 
instead of letting in a stream of misery or death. 
Let every odor key be turned, and at once the place 
is filled with the sweetness of heaven. These pipes 
and keys may serve to illustrate the moral govern- 
ment of God. 

Actions have tendencies ; some produce felicity, 
others infelicity. The immortality within us is a liv- 
ing principle of ceaseless activity — a perennial fire 
that never goes out. Throw the soul into a state of 
quietus, and you might as well annihilate it. Action 
is to the mind what breathing is to the body, — its 
life. The great design of the government of Jehovah 
is to make beings thus constituted instruments of each 
other's happiness, both in time and in eternity, and 
by employing them constantly in producing delight, 
prevent them from producing misery. The law of 
God prohibits all those actions or things which would 
directly or indirectly give the slightest pain, or sad- 
den for a moment a single heart ; and requires the 
employment of the unceasingly active powers of the 
mind in doing what will increase the general joy, 
widen the openings of the fountains of life, and 
cause the streams thereof to flow deeper and wider in 
waves of increasing delight — to bear creation for- 
ward toward the throne of God, from whence pours 
forth all the bliss that the Infinite can impart to fi- 



10 

nites. And all this is done in a way which will 
strengthen the bonds which unite social beings. It 
makes them instruments of each other's happiness — 
increases their obligations to each other forever. 
What wisdom, what love in this arrangement ! How 
near will the operation of this law bring together, 
through an eternal heaven, the inhabitants of the 
worlds of joy ! With what delight will this arrange- 
ment be contemplated through eternity ! Let none 
suppose, for one moment, that the moral government 
of God will not require obedience to his law in 
heaven ; for the perfection of earthly obedience is to 
do the will of God on earth as it is done in heaven ; 
to obey his law here as it is obeyed there. 

"Love worketh no ill to his neighbor." But who 
is my neighbor ? Some may be ready to answer, the 
man in the next door, across the street, or on the next 
farm. The neighborhood of some is very small. 
They are not willing to acknowledge that the slave in 
the South is their neighbor ; they are unwilling to 
know that he is. Let us examine into who is our 
neighbor. The word in the original is rhe, a verbal 
noun : it comes from the verb ra ah, to see, — or he 
saiv, viewed, beheld, perceived, knew, discerned, — and 
means the person seen, perceived, or discerned ; hence 
I am neighbor to any person I have any knowledge 
or conception of. This comports with our Lord's 
definition in the case of the man who fell among 
thieves. He was a Jew. The priest lived near him, 
and so did the Levite. The priest went down on ono 



11 

side, the Levite on the other ; but neither gave him 
the needed aid. How his heart must have leaped for 
joy, when he saw his brother Jew approaching him,-^- 
more, when he saw his priest ! But what a change 
of feeling when his priest passed by and paid no at- 
tention to him ! But his hope revived when hearing 
the footsteps of a man approaching him, he looked 
and saw his Levite ; but soon died, as he saw him pass 
by on the other side. He must have given himself 
up to die, when the men of his own sanctuary, whose 
only business was to serve the people at the altar of 
the living Jehovah, had no hearts to feel for him, or 
hands to give relief. But the sound of footsteps fall 
again upon his ear, and behold a Samaritan ap- 
proaches ! A man of another nation, an enemy of 
the Jews — his enemy — a sad reflection ; but this stran- 
ger spoke kindly to him, took him to an inn, and re- 
lieved all his wants. How unexpected must all this 
have been ! Our Lord asked who was neighbor to 
him who fell among thieves ? The Jews answered, 
"he who showed him kindness;" and the Savior ac- 
cepts the answer. This settles the meaning. Ac- 
cording to the literal meaning of the word, any per- 
son that I can see, perceive, or have any knowledge 
of, is my neighbor ; and according to our Lord, any 
person to whom I can show kindness. We can do 
some act af kindness to all, even the slaves over the 
river, yea, in the far south. We cannot go there and 
unloose their chains, but we can send up fervent 
prayer to the Grod of heaven for them, and he can 



12 

and will do it. If we are not good men and women 
we ought to be, and what we ought to be we may be, 
and the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous 
availeth much. And as we can pray for all men, we 
can show kindness to all, — be neighbor to all ; every 
human being is our neighbor. The entirety of hu- 
manity is the neighborhood of Christianity. 

The human being does not live for whom we can- 
not pray — to whom we cannot show kindness. Away 
with the mistaken notion, — I will use scriptural lan- 
guage, and say — damnable heresy, which confines our 
sympathies — our christian affection to the narrow 
limits of the smoke of our fires. Blessed be the name 
of the Most High, I can be neighbor to every human 
being ; my neighborhood is as big as the world — the 
world is the neighborhood of the christian — yes, and 
if there were beings in the moon for whom Christ died, 
to save from sin, they would be in my neighborhood 
too ; and I could act the part of a neighbor to them 
— sympathize with them through Jesus, our living 
head, as the members of the body sympathize with 
each other through their common head. 

Does slavery work ill ? If it does, it conflicts with 
the law of love, which fulfills the law of God, — is the 
law of God. I think none who heard me last night, 
can doubt for a moment that it works ill, and if so, 
it falls under the condemnation of scripture. Some 
say, "show me, thus saith the Lord, and I will be- 
lieve." I think I can do it. I will try presently . 
But slavery assumes such a variety of shapes, phases, 



13 

and forms, that to condemn it In one form would not 
cover the whole ground, or even in many forms would 
leave some modification of it uncondemned. The 
scriptures condemn every element that enters into the 
composition of slavery, just as the Pope curses her- 
etics, beginning at the "topmost hair," and curses 
every muscle, sinew, tendon, and fibre, from the head 
to the toes, and then curses the whole man. This is 
a very effectual way to curse, and in this effectual way 
the scriptures condemn slavery ; condemn all the ele- 
ments which enter into its composition, and then con- 
demn it by name — the name the God of heaven has 
given it in his word ; from this condemnation there is 
no escape. 

I have heard some professed christians say, that 
they were "as much opposed to slavery as anybody," 
but they believed the Bible sanctioned it. This is an 
extremely awkward position. These persons' morality 
is purer than the Bible. They condemn as wicked 
what the Bible sanctions as righteous. I could not 
bring myself to proclaim, that my principles were 
purer than my admitted rule of faith and practice, 
which is a revelation from an infinitely pure and holy 
God. But some go even thus far, to apologize for 
slavery. It is not to be wondered at ; the mainten- 
ance of error is always inconsistent. 

I will call your attention to some of those passages 

of the Holy Scriptures which have been claimed as 

giving support to slavery. Leviticus xxv. 44, 45, and 

46, are mainly relied on for its support, — are claimed 

2 



14 

as the great foundation of the system, and are on this 
account entitled to a careful examination. I 

Here I will say, I am a southerner ; have lived 
thirty-two years in the slave States ; have preached 
to slaves and slaveholders hundreds of times. I then 
believed, as I now do, that any person living and dy- 
ing in the spirit and practice of slavery, would be in- 
evitably lost ; and this doctrine I have preached to 
slaveholders repeatedly. From my earliest recollec- 
tion, all persons of whom I had any knowledge, ad- 
mitted that slavery was wrong. The religion of the 
entire South condemned it as wrong, up to 1834. At 
that time an old J), D,, who had formerly been Presi- 
dent of a College in the county and State in which I 
was born and raised, made the important discovery, 
jthat the sin was in the abuse, not in the use ; that the 
relation was sanctioned by the Holy Scriptures, while 
the abuse was condemned by them. He was at that 
time a Professor in a theological seminary. This im- 
portant discovery was first made known in an ecclesi- 
astical association in Virginia, my native State. 

The subject of modern abolitionism was then be- 
ginning to excite the South. One member of the as- 
sociation said, in an inflammatory speech, that, "if 
the abolitionists would set the country on fire, it would 
be right to give them the first warming.*' The learned 
D. D. said, " I think we are in error ; we have ad- 
mitted that slavery was sinful. This we have always 
acknowledged, and if our premises be correct, the 
conclusions of the abolitionists are undeniable. If 



15 

slavery be a sin, it must be immediately repented of, 
to secure the divine favor, as immediate repentance 
is required of all sinners ; but I think, brethren, Tire 
have conceded too much. If we examine the subject 
carefully, we shall find that slavery is a relation sanc- 
tioned by the scriptures ; that this relation is not sin- 
ful ; and the sin is not in the relation, but in the abuse 
of it, and that we have confounded the abuse of slave- 
ry with its use. The abolitionists have taken advan- 
tage of this admission, and have assailed slavery, 
which is right, with the weapons which the scriptures 
furnish to correct its sinful abuses, not its proper 
uses." This was the first intimation that slavery was 
not sinful ; and as soon as it was brought forth by 
this D. D., it ran like fire in dry stubble all over the 
South, and over a great part of the North too. I 
spent several days, in this State, in public debate with 
two presbyterian ministers, who undertook to prove, 
from the book of God, that slavery was not only sanc- 
tioned by that book, but it was of divine appointment. 
This Reverend Doctor made another discovery, 
which was as little creditable to him as this : that it 
Was a sin for a slave to pray to the Almighty on the 
sabbath-day, if the master was administering chastise- 
ment. This discovery was made in this wise : he was 
a slaveholder, and a severe one too, and often with 
his own hands applied the cowhide to the naked backs 
of his slaves. On one occasion a woman, who served 
in the house, committed on Sunday an offense of too 
great a magnitude to go unpunished until Monday. 



16 

In towns and cities slaves are generally whipped in 
cellars, to prevent their cries from being heard as far 
as they would he in other situations. This is not the 
case on the plantations. The Doctor lived in a town, 
and on this occasion took his woman into the cellar, 
and as is usual in such cases, stripped her from 
her waist up, and then applied the lash. The 
poor woman writhed and winced under each stroke, 
and cried, Oh! master, have mercy! Oh! master, 
do have mercy ! but without effect. She then cried, 
Oh, Lord ! Oh Lord ! ! Oh LORD ! ! ! The Rever- 
end Doctor then stopped, and his hand fell to his side 
as .though it had been stricken with the palsy, gazed 
on the woman with astonishment, and thus addressed 
her (the congregation will pardon me for repeating 
his words) : " hush, you b — h, will you take the name 
of the Lord in vain on the sabbath-day ? " And 
when he had stopped the woman from the gross pro- 
fanity of crying to God in her distress on the sabbath- 
day, finished whipping her, and then went to his pul- 
pit and essayed to preach that gospel which proclaims 
liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison- 
doors to them who are bound. This was the man who 
made the important discovery that slavery is not sin- 
ful ; and surely he was just the man for such a work. 
Rut he is now where the servant is freed from his 
master — he has gone to his reward. 

Let us go to the South, and take up the resolutions 
of southern Presbyterian Synods, and Methodist Con- 
ferences. These have taken the ground that slavery 



IT 

is not sinful — is not a moral evil. And in the addres 
of our Methodist Bishops,* at the General Conferenc 
of 1840, the same ground is substantially taken. The t 
would not have slavery preached against as a sin, bu 
the master and slave both converted and brought int 
the church, and in the relation of master and slave live 
and die, and get to heaven. This is the doctrine of the 
bishops of the M. E. Church, and of the church too. The 
church never has required her slaveholding members 
to free their slaves, as a condition of salvation or 
membership — does not now do it ; has always taught 
that entire sanctification was an indispensable condi- 
tion of salvation in heaven, and that Providence de- 
signed by Methodism to " spread scriptural holiness 
through these lands," — and yet have from the first 
admitted that slaveholders might be saved — now take 
that ground ; consequently, that slaveholding is not 
inconsistent with entire sanctification ; for the argu- 
ment when stated stands thus : None but entirely 
sanctified persons can be saved, — slaveholders can be 
saved, — therefore, slaveholders can be entirely sanc- 
tified. I admit this church has always said that 
slavery was "a great evil," but never considered it 
an evil of sufficient magnitude to exclude slaveholders 
either from the church or heaven ; and that which 
does neither of these, is no great evil after all. 

According to this doctrine, "master use-well" is 
as good a christian as grace can make, all things else 
being right. And "master use-ivelV is a very eom- 

* The author was at that time an Episcopal Meths«&st. 
2* 



18 

mon character at the South ; you may find him or. 
every plantation. All slaveholders claim to use their 
slaves well ; and each is left to determine this question 
for himself, as the church has not even attempted any 
standard, except to allow slaves to go to meeting and 
to receive some religious instruction, but nothing 
further ; and, according to their showing, none of 
them are in danger of being lost on account of slavery. 
It may be asked, how did this opinion obtain such 
general acceptance ? This passage in Leviticus, and 
some texts in the New Testament which speak of 
master and servant, were glossed over so as to appear 
to favor slavery ; and thus the conclusion was reached 
that it was not a moral evil, for a pure and holy God 
could not in any circumstances sanction sin. The 
introduction of this argument was as follows : After 
the Spaniards had discovered South America, and 
commenced working the gold mines of that continent, 
they employed the Indians in them. The amount of 
gold required by the Spaniards was more than the In- 
dians could procure ; and they were worked so hard 
that many of them died. The priests (for the Jesuits 
had large possessions* and influence in South Ameri- 
ca at this time), out of compassion for those oppressed 
beings, proposed to introduce slaves to divide the la- 
bor with them. The Portuguese had commenced the 
slave-trade at that time ; and applications were made 
by the priests and Jesuits to Charles V., and the Pope 
of Rome, for permission to buy slaves of the Portu- 
* See Robertson's Charles V, 



19 

guese, but they both refused. Las Casas, a priest, 
and afterward a bishop, glossed over the 25th of Le- 
viticus, and some parts of the New Testament, so as 
to adapt, or rather pervert, them to their purpose. 
He argued that the Jews were authorized, or required, 
to buy heathen servants — " servants of the heathen," 
and teach them the worship of the true God — to ju- 
daize them, and so far from it being a sin to enslave 
heathen to make them Christians, it was a duty ; for 
the Jew had been required to enslave them to make 
them Jews, a less blessed state. This plea was suc- 
cessful, and the emperor granted permission to buy 
four or five thousand annually, to be employed in the 
gold-mines, notwithstanding his former decision. The 
Jesuitical priest proposed to take the heathen from a 
state of barbarism — from a land of idolatry, from the 
altars of their pagan gods, and bring them to a land 
of gospel-light — to the temples of the true God. In 
a word, to bless them with Christianity— to bless them 
with faith and hope in God, and to send them through 
the gold-mines to the city whose streets are paved 
with gold. And thus avarice, in the disguise of Christ- 
ianity, succeeded in reconciling one of the greatest 
sins with the christian profession, in the judgment of 
many ; and did more to make sensible men infidels 
than was ever done at any other one time, or by any 
other set of men the world ever saw. 

The emperor resigned his throne to his son Phil- 
lip, and retired to a monastery ; but previous to his 
abdication he repealed this act of privilege ; but tho 



20 

interest of the trade had become so lucrative, that his 
successor paid no attention to the repeal, and the trade 
went on. This was the commencement of the slave- 
trade and American slavery. These glosses of Las 
Casas were improved by the Jesuits. Then came Cal- 
met, the great biblical lexicographer, and adopted 
these glosses. Then followed Scott, Henry, Dodd, 
Gill, Coke, Benson, and Clarke, and with one accord 
and without examination adopted Calmet. Thus the 
pro-slavery glosses of Las Casas and the -Jesuits have 
obtained among biblical critics, both Calvinistic and 
A r mini an i These glosses run through all our com- 
mentaries ; but a careful examination of the subject 
will prove that they are in error on this most import- 
ant point. Our commentators were good men, wise 
men, and learned men ; — but the mind of the church 
was occupied with the jive points, tvatev laptism, and 
Catholicism. Slavery was not a subject of investiga- 
tion, much less the subject, and no candid or careful 
examination of it was made in their day. This is 
proven by the fact that all adopt Calmet, without 
questioning any of his positions, or taking any new 
ones. But I think you will presently be convinced 
that slavery finds no support in the 25th chapter of 
Leviticus. 

All parts of the Divine Government harmonize. 
Infinite wisdom has so arranged its proportions that 
the whole operates without a jar. The Jewish The- 
ocracy was of divine appointment, — the arrangement 
of infinite wisdom ; hence the operation of the whole 



21 

must have been harmonious ;. no conflict could ever 
take place in its action as is sometimes the case with 
our general and State governments, and all human 
contrived institutions. There are three things brought 
to view in this chapter: 1st. the Great Atonement ; 
2nd. the Jubilee ; and 3rd. the bringing in of the 
heathen to the enjoyment of the religious privileges 
of the Jewish Theocracy. All these are set forth in 
this chapter. 

The institution of the atonement is in the 16th 
chapter, from 29th verse to the end of the chapter, 
and is again repeated in 23rd chapter, from 26th to 
the 33rd. This institution was typical of the great 
atonement made by God's Eternal Son for sin, and 
was designed to keep the eye of the Jew's faith stead- 
ily fixed on him who was to come. This was one of 
the most important institutions of the Jewish Theocra- 
cy, if not the most important, and was to be observed 
yearly, with the strictest religious devotion. 

The 25th chapter contains the institution of the 
Jubilee, which was typical of the liberty from sin 
which the atonement of Christ was designed to secure. 
On this point all commentators, as far as my know- 
ledge of them goes, are agreed. This institution was 
associated with the atonement^ was to take place on 
the day of atonement, which the Apostle, in the 10th 
chapter of Hebrews, connects with the great atone- 
ment of Christ, and shows clearly was not designed 
to cleanse the Jews from sin, but to fix their eves on 
him by whose stripes they were to be healed. The 



22 

blowing of the trumpets on the day of atonement was 
typical of the gospel-trumpet of salvation — the pro- 
clamation of freedom from sin, which was to follow 
the tragedy of Calvary. And the bringing in of the 
heathen from the surrounding nations was typical of 
the gathering of the gentiles into the gospel-kingdom 
by the preaching of the truth, which makes free the 
slaves of sin — the gospel-jubilee of freedom from the 
bondage of corruption and sin, into the liberty of the 
sons of God. But according to the pro-slavery expo- 
sition, slavery is a type of the liberty of the truth — 
of salvation from the bondage of sin. A queer type 
of the liberty of the sons of God. 

I propose to show that this chapter contains tlio 
constitution of Heaven's first Missionary Society, and 
that the arrangement for the purchase of servants 
was a provision of Divine compassion, by which a 
door of mercy and salvation was opened to the hea- 
then, through which they could find access to the altar 
of sacrifice ordained of God, find mercy and live ; and 
furthermore, to prove that the whole arrangement 
looked to the benefits of the servants, and not those 
of the masters. 

To understand the Jewish economy, we must look 
at all its peculiarities. The harmonized action of the 
various parts exhibits the design of that economy. 
The first particular we shall notice, is the land could 
never be sold. It was divided among the tribes, fam- 
ilies, households and persons, Lev. 25. 23, Josh, from 
U to 20 ch f , and 7 and 15, 17, and 18, The Lord 



23 

claimed the lands as his. It might change hands for 
a season by a limited sale, or rather what we would 
"call a lease, but it might be redeemed at any time, 
and if not redeemed before the Jubilee, went back to 
its original owner without redemption. The only ex- 
ception to this statute was a house in a walled town, 
which might be redeemed in one year, but if not re- 
deemed in that time, did not go out free in the Jubilee. 
Lev. xxv. 29, 30. In this chapter we have in a very 
small compass the very best system of democracy the 
world was ever blessed with. Here was a plan to 
maintain equality. None could be poor long, and 
none could out-strip their brethren in wealth for any 
length of time, for if a reverse of circumstances obliged 
any to sell their lands, they might redeem them, should 
a favorable change take place, or any of their family 
or near kin might do it for them ; but if neither hap- 
pened, the lands reverted to their original possessors 
in the Jubilee, and thus all things found their level 
every fifty years. Well would it be for our world, if 
statesmen, instead of wading through so many trashy 
volumes of political economy, would take their prin- 
ciples from the word of God. See Lev. 25, 26, and 27. 
Now, from this peculiarity, what was the situation 
of strangers in Judea ? They could purchase no land, 
for there was none for sale, and they could not ob- 
tain any permanent possession, except in a walled 
town. They could have no permanent residence, ex- 
cept in the character of servants or dependents, ex- 
cept in a walled city ; not one foot of land could be 



obtained by one of the strangers outside of walls, from 
Dan to Beer Sheba. And it must be noticed that 
tributaries, such as the Gibeonites, who maintained 
their nationality, were not permitted to enjoy the 
privileges of the Jewish churchy to enjoy these priv- 
ileges they had to loose their nationality, become fam- 
ily servants, or live in a walled town. This was the 
only door — mark this ! 

A second peculiarity of great importance to the 
proper understanding of this subject, is the place 
the true God was then worshiped. 

First the Tabernacle, and then the Temple, was the 
house of prayer for all nations and people. Isa. 
Lvi. 7, and Math. xxi. 13. There was the true altar ; 
the divinely appointed sacrifices were to be offered 
there, and no where else but there ; there the symbols 
of the Divine presence hung over the mercy-seat ; 
there was the Ark of the Covenant ; there, and only 
there, God met, in mercy, his people. And this was 
the case until the veil of the Temple was rent at the 
time of the crucifixion. Up to that time all men had 
to worship the Father at Jerusalem ; but when the 
Atonement was made, the Divine presence was no 
longer confined to the Jewish mercy-seat, but wher- 
ever two or three were gathered together in the 
name of Him who our transgressions bore, there His 
presence should be in the midst of them — there was 
a mercy-seat. But how were persons not of the fam- 
ily of Jacob to worship the true God, while the Di- 
vine presence was confined to the Jewish mercy-seat 'i 



25 

How were those who were disposed to leave their idols 
and heathen customs to approach the true God, and 
Worship him in his Temple, — to become worshipers of 
Israel's God? They must go to Jerusalem — they 
must become Jews ; for the uncircumcised were not 
permitted to partake of his ordinances, or approach 
his sanctuary; Ex. xii. 48, and Gen. xvii. 14, — and 
the only way th. could do this was to become incor- 
porated into a J< wish family, or to live in a walled 
town. And the door opened in this chapter is the 
only door that ever was opened, through which pious 
Gentiles could approach to God, in his ordinances, 
previous to the crucifixion ; and the provision relative 
to the houses in walled towns, and family servitude, 
was that door, all that door and nothing but that 
door. This will appear from the following consider- 
ations. 

The law of circumcision required all males to be 
circumcised, whether born in the house or bought with 
money. Gen. xvii. from 10 to 15. This covenant, 
made with Abraham, was imposed on all the Jews at 
the institution of the Passover, Ex. xii. 48. And 
Joshua imposed circumcision on all the Jews before 
they were permitted to enter the promised land, Josh, 
v. from 2 to 10. The law of circumcision was imposed 
on the Jews as one of their institutions. All males 
were required to appear three times a year before the 
Lord, to offer sacrifices to God — to worship the Most 
High, Ex. xxiii. from 15 to 20. The servants bought 
with money — bought servants were required to keep 
3 



26 

the passover, both male and female, but all the male* 
■were required to be circumcised before they kept it — 
Ex. xii.. from 43 to the end of the chapter. These 
servants were required to keep the Sabbath holy — Ex. 
xx. 10. The whole Jewish nation, both male and fe- 
male, were required to keep the feast of the passover, 
the feast of weeks, and the feast of tabernacles every 
vear. Their man-servants and their maid-servants, 
their widows and fatherless, and the strangers which 
were among them. The whole nation — Deut. xvi. 
from 10 to 18. These three feasts were to be kept 
by all ; but in keeping, all the males were required to 
appear before the Lord in the place he might choose ; 
and he chose Jerusalem as that place — Deut. xvi. 16, 
Ex. xxiii. 17, and xxxiv. 23, 26. The women were 
to keep them at home, they were not required to ap- 
pear before the Lord in the place which he might 
choose. And these duties were all required of the 
kind of servants spoken of in the 25th of Leviticus — 
"bought servants." These servants were required 
to do all the religious duties imposed on the Jews — to 
be just as strict in their attention to the worship of 
the great "I am," as the children of Jacob were. 
There was one law for both in relation to those duties 
— Ex. xii. 49. And these duties were conditions of a 
name and a place in the congregation of Israel, and 
a right to the privileges of the house of God. He 
that was circumcised was debtor to keep the whole 
law ; and he that was not circumcised was to be cut 
off from God's people, Gal. v. 3, and Gen. xvii. 14. 



27 

None could belong to the people of God who did not 
attend to those duties. The Jewish servants were 
hired servants, and as such could not keep the pass- 
over in the family in which they were hired. Lev. 
xxv. 89, 40. Ex. xii. 45. The Jewish or hired ser- 
vants belonged to some Jewish family, and they were 
required to keep it in their own families, Ex. xiii. 3, 4. 
Now let one of those heathen servants refuse to be 
circumcised, or refuse to discharge any of these duties 
(see Gen. xvii. 14, Ex. xii. 15 and 19, Lev. xvii. 12 
to 14, Num. xv. 30, 31), and he would be cut off from 
the congregation of Israel ; expatriated from the na- 
tion would no longer have a name or place in Israel. 
Every heathen had to become religious, to submit to 
all these rites and observances, in order to become a 
servant, and to continue them if he would remain one. 
From this fact it is not only plain but undeniable, 
that the end of this servitude was the salvation of 
those servants. 

The Jews were commanded to have the same law 
for the stranger they had for him who was home-born, 
Ex. xii. 49, Lev. xxiv. 16 and 22 ; and they were 
positively forbidden to vex or oppress the stranger, 
Ex. xxii. 21. Why was this special precept in favor 
of strangers given, seeing they had all the religious 
privileges of the Jews ; all the privileges of every kind 
— why this over and above ? Plainly because they 
came among the Jews for a knowledge of the true 
God. And the Jews were prohibited from throwing 
a stumbling-block in their way, or producing disgust 



28 

in their mind, or in any way discouraging them in the 
worship of the true God, or tempting them to return 
to their former idols. The whole was for the servant's 
benefit, — looked to his ultimate salvation in Heaven, 
as we shall see more clearly presently. 

Another important fact will throw light on this 
servitude. The law of God nowhere authorized the 
selling of men. The Jews might sell women, hut not 
men. They might sell their own daughters for wives, 
but not for eond-maids. The Jew bought his wife — 
paid a dower for her, and if he did not like her, after- 
wards, he had to perform the duty of marriage to her ; 
or if he bought a wife for his son, he was to deal with 
her after the manner of daughters. If he did not 
like her, she might be redeemed, but not sold to a 
stranger, and if she was not redeemed, and he took 
to him another wife, she went out free, if her food, 
raiment, and duty of marriage was not to be withheld : 
Ex. xxi. 7 to 11. Jacob, because he was poor, had 
to serve seven years for his beloved Rachel, and was 
then cheated by Laban, and had to serve seven other 
years to obtain the object of his love. He obtained a 
wife for his first seven years* service, but not his 
Rachel. The sale of daughters for wives is the only 
case in which any person was authorized to sell an- 
other — where a third person was sold. Another in- 
stance can not be produced. The law of Cod punished 
with death the stealing of a man, the selling of a man, 
or the retaining in hands the stolen man, and the 
term man, in this precept, includes the race ; is gener- 



29 

icaliy used. The stealing of a human being is what 
the law forbids. If we compare Ex. xxi. 16, with 
Deut. xxiv. 7, we will see that selling is a separate 
and distinct crime from stealing, though our transla- 
tion couples them by and in Ex., but the particle in 
the Hebrew is the same that is rendered OR in the 
same verse, "or if he be found in his hand" — or, 
here, is the same particle that is rendered and in 
"He that stealeth a man and selleth him," and ought 
to' be or. In Deut. xxiv. 7, selling is made a distinct 
crime, to be punished with death. If the opposite 
view be urged, man-stealing alone would not be a 
crime — any more than man-selling, for they are coup- 
led by and ; this is not claimed, and if this be given 
up, the other must be granted, for if man-stealing by 
itself be a crime, man-selling by itself is something, 
and that something is a crime, punishable with death. 
In the chapter under consideration, it is all buy and 
no sell. Permission is given to buy servants, but 
none to sell them. 

Some have contended that the term bond-ser- 
vants in this chapter was indicative of slaves ; but 
the Hebrew malces no distinction between servants ; 
there is nothing in the original to authorize the prefix 
" bond." The word is oved, plural ovedim, and comes 
from the verb a-vad (I follow the pronunciation of 
Roy). 1. He sowed, labored, cultivated, tilled, as the 
ground. 2. Submitted, obeyed, worshiped. 3. Min- 
istered or served, as in the sanctuary. 4. Was sus- 
tained or supported, as by the produce of the field. 
3* 



30 

5. He ploughed, wrought, as with a heifer. 6. Pre- 
pared, made ready. 7. Was subdued, enslaved. 8. 
Caused to contend, warred, served, as a soldier. — - 
Roy's dictionary. To subdue or inslave is but a re- 
mote meaning of the word ; there is as much or more 
authority for translating the word ploughman or ox 
driver as slave.* The servants obtained from the 
heathen, " bought servants," were members of tho 
congregation of Israel, held to the same duties the 
native Jews \|ere — were in fact Jews, by adoption or 
proselytism ; and placed under the protection of the 
same laws. This we have seen. Heathen might be- 
come members of the congregation of Israel — Jews, 
by proselytism. The Ammonites and Moabites might 
not enter in— they were excluded. We have some il- 
lustrious examples of persons becoming Jews,, and 
eveji Ruth, the great grandmother of David, was a 
Moabitess. 

Now let us see how such a system of slavery aa 
ours would work, in connection with the Jewish provi- 
sions just noticed. I will illustrate it thus : my friend, 

* Dr. Rice, in Lis debate with Mr. Blanchard, claimed that the 
word oved meant slave, though the word slave occurs but once it 
the bible; this word being by our translators rendered servant 
everywhere in the bible. Dr. Rice,, wben pressed with this fact by 
his opponent, asked what Hebrew word meant slave if this did not ! 
Mt. Blanchard replied that the Hebrews expressed slave by cir- 
cumlocution. But the truth is, they did not express it all, for 
slavery had no existence in the time of Abraham or Moses. Th* 
chattel principle was then unknown : the idea had no being, and 
oould have no sign. 



31 

Mr. Blan chard, goes to Pittsburgh and buys me — he 
brings me to Cincinnati; and the first thing he says 
to me is, " Come, my man, you must' be circumcised." 
This being a voluntary act on my part, as every act 
of Divine worship must be, I have the power to com- 
ply or refuse compliance, as I may choose, and I say, 
" No, sir, I will not be circumcised." He adds, 
" You cannot keep the passover unless you are." I 
reply, "I do not want to keep the passover." He 
adds again, " You cannot go up to Jerusalem to keep 
the feasts or offer sacrifice unless you are circum- 
cised." I reply, "I do not want to worship your 
Cincinnati god ; I have a better god in Pittsburgh 
than yours, and I prefer to worship him." He then 
says, " You cannot dwell in this land unless you con- 
form to our usage, and worship our God." I reply, 
" I do not want to dwell in your land — I will not wor- 
ship your God ; and you dare not sell me. If you 
do, your own laws will put you to death ; you cannot 
keep me unless I am circumcised, and this I never 
will be ; and though you have bought me, you are a 
Jew and dare not sell me ; and as you can neither 
keep me nor sell me, I am out of your power, and 
will go back to my wife and children in Pittsburgh." 
And thus I politely bid master Blanchard "good 
day," Here ends my enslavement. And this was 
precisely the case with those bondmen; they could 
not be held as bought servants unless they were cir- 
cumcised, and they could not be sold. So, if they 
refused to be circumcised, their bondage was at aa 



32 

end ; for a slave that can be neither kept nor sold is 
free. Here is an end of this pretended slavery ; this 
all buying and no selling business. Slavery cannot 
be got in here ; it would be harder than to get a 
camel through the eye of a needle. I could as soon 
undertake to get an elephant through, as to find sup- 
port for the bloody abomination in this chapter. That 
those who became servants did it voluntarily, is posi- 
tively proven by the fact, that they were met at their 
entrance into that servitude, with a voluntary religi- 
ous duty, through which they had to pass, as the door 
into it ; and it was with them, and not their buyers, 
to say whether they would go into that door or not. 
This is a fact, than which nothing can be plainer. 
Oh how blinded, or rather ignorant, must D. D.'s be, 
who can find American slavery in this chapter ! 

But it may be asked, how were they bought? 
Suppose the heathen servants were kidnapped, as our 
slaves were at first, they must have been sold by their 
kidnappers to some one ; and what Jew would buy 
one of those stolen men either directly from the kid- 
napper, or at second hand, seeing his own law would 
put him to death for having a stolen man in his hands. 
Permit me to continue my illustration : I am stolen 
and sold to Mr. Blanchard. I am a stolen man, and 
found in the hands of my friend. Your law would 
put him to death for having in his hands a stolen 
man ; and as neither he, nor any other person in your 
government dare sell me, I would be free, unless I 
agreed to be circumcised, and he would be hung. 



33 

And this was precisely the case with those olden time 
servants. Should the high priest have bought one, he 
would have been put to death for having a stolen man 
in his possession, and the man would have been free. 
Of whom, then, were these heathen servants bought? 
Of themselves, they might sell themselves, but no 
Jew dare sell one of them ; their sale was their own 
act and deed, they entered into this service volunta- 
rily, and for their own benefit. And as at their en- 
trance, and during their continuance in it, they were 
required to worship the living and true God, accord- 
ing to his law, they must have entered this service 
for pious purposes. This service was a holy service, 
and entering it was joining the Jewish church — God's 
only church on earth at that time. This is undeni- 
able. 

Every year these servants were required to keep 
the passover, as a condition of their remaining mem- 
bers of the congregation of God's people, or having 
a place as a bought servant in any Jewish family. 
See Ex. xii. 15 and 19. Now suppose a Jew should 
obtain the consent of a heathen to become circum- 
cised, or of a woman to become a bond-maid, and 
should afterwards attempt to rule over him or her 
with rigor, how would his attempt be met? Once in 
each year these servants had to keep the passover. 
All this man or woman would have to do to secure 
their freedom, would be to eat a piece, no matter how 
small, of leavened bread, in the time of keeping the 
passover, and they would be free ; for if they did 



84 

this they could not remain in Israel ; and they could 
not — dare not — be sold by a Jew. And thus they 
could secure their freedom once a year as easily as a 
hungry man could eat a piece of bread. From this 
fact it is plain that they continued in this service 
from choice. How long would American slavery last 
if there were seven days in each year, in which the 
slaves could secure their freedom by eating a small 
piece of bread? 

The law required the Jews to love these strangers 
as they loved themselves, and not to rule over them 
with rigor. Lev. xix. 34 ; Ex. xxii. 21, and xxiii. 9 ; 
Deut. xii. 18, 19, and xxiv. 14 to 16. Why were 
these special commands given ? Because these ser- 
vants and strangers were Jewish proselytes, and the 
Jews were not allowed to throw stumbling-blocks in 
their way, by which they might become discouraged, 
or turned back to their former idolatry, which they 
were free to do, as we have seen. As a farther proof 
that the discharge of the religious duties before men- 
tioned was a condition of those servants or strangers 
remaining in the land of Israel, see Leviticus, chap. vii. 

But it may be inquired, what is man-stealing, 
which was punishable with death by the Jewish law ? 
Joseph said, Gen. xl. 15, " for indeed I was stolen 
away out of the land of the Hebrews." Here we 
have the authority of the Holy Ghost, that what was 
done to Joseph constituted man-stealing. And the 
history of that doing is most explicit. He was sold 
by a third person or third persons without his con- 



35 

sent — money was paid for him to his sellers, and he 
was made to serve without his consent. Here is the 
whole history of that transaction. And this, on the 
authority of God's Holy Word, is man-stealing. But 
who were the thieves in this case — the sellers or the 
buyers t Or were both implicated ? The man that 
takes the thing stolen is the thief — that possesses 
himself of it. Those who took Joseph — that pos- 
sessed themselves of him — were the thieves. To take 
possession of Joseph, without his consent, was to steal 
him ; and to maintain that possession was to continue 
the theft — than which nothing can be plainer. And 
here we see why man-selling was coupled by Jehovah 
with man-stealing in the death-penalty ; they are in 
very deed the same thing. And this is also true of him 
who holds the stolen man in his hands ; he continues 
the theft, and is therefore a thief too, and united 
with the others in the death-penalty. Their crimes 
are substantially the same, and God metes out to 
them the same punishment. The sellers of Joseph 
were by no means guiltless. They might be called 
kidnappers, the name of them who first seize on hu- 
man beings and rob them of their liberty — who first 
take possession of them without their consent ; but 
all who take human beings without their consent, 
first or last, are man-stealers. The principle is the 
very same throughout.* 

* But it may be said that Joseph was a minor. This does not 
alter the case. His father had a right of service in him, and 
not his brethren. This the Ishmaelites knew, and when they 



The law of God makes no distinction between 
theft and robbery ; they are one in the eye of his 
law. But in our law, to take that which belongs to 
another, — -his money or his property, or anything 
that is his, without his knowledge, — is stealing ; and 
to take it without his knowledge, and without his con- 
sent, is robbery ; but not so in the eye of the divine 
law. Robbery, according to human law, is theft ac- 
cording to the divine code. " Thou shalt not steal," 
includes all taking of that which belongs to another, 
without his consent. If I take your horse from you, 
without your consent, I steal it. If I take your 
money, without your consent, I steal it ; and so long 
as I keep them from your possession, and conse- 
quently from your use, I continue the theft. If I 
take you into my possession, without your consent, I 
take you out of your own, and steal you ; I do the 
same, the very same, to you I did to your horse and 
money — possess myself of what belongs to you, with- 
out your consent. You are the rightful owner of 
yourself, and I possess myself of you without your 
consent. This is man-stealing to all intents and pur- 
poses. If it be not, the crime never was, nor never 

bought him of his brethren they knew his brethren had no right 
to sell him, and they were thieves, for he was stolen from the land 
of the Hebrews, and they took him from that land by theft 
They possessed themselves of what belonged to another person, 
without the consent of that other person ; and they stole. Jacob 
had a right to Joseph's services. Joseph had a right to his per- 
son, and neither were consenting to the transaction. 



37 

can be, committed. And this was what was done to 
Joseph. Liberty is the birthright of every human 
being, and our declaration of independence declares 
it is inalienable, and that ought to be American or- 
thodoxy. It is, at any rate, Heavenly orthodoxy ; 
hence, whenever I see a man, I see his rightful owner, 
his claim to himself stands good, in the sight of the 
Judge of all the earth, against the claim of any, and 
all other persons ; and when I take possession of that 
man, without his consent, I know I take that which 
rightfully belongs to another person, and I steal ; and 
as long as I retain possession of him, I know that I 
retain possession of that which rightfully belongs to 
another person, and I steal. So that the buyer and 
holder are equal thieves with the first depriver of lib- 
erty, and God's law punishes them accordingly. The 
buyer knows that the seller has no right to the man, 
but that the man has a right to himself — that he can 
obtain no just right to the man, but that the man has 
a right to himself — that he can obtain no just right 
to the man from the seller ; for he has none, can have 
none. He does not buy the right to the man, for 
this is inalienable, and cannot be bought ; for it can- 
not be sold. He only buys the privilege of stealing 
the man. This is all. And when he exercises that 
privilege, becomes a thief; and, so long as he exer- 
cises it, remains a thief. Hence the buyer and the 
holder, in the sight of God's law, are equally guilty 
with the first depriver of liberty. But look at the 
Jewish commentators on this point, and the case 
4 



38 

will appear, if possible, clearer and stronger. We 
have the comments of the most learned of their 
Kabbies. He says, " to use a man's arm in walking, 
against his consent, is a violation of the law against 
man-stealing." It is clear and undeniable, that to 
compel service, except for crime, of men who have 
the same natural rights the compeller has, is man- 
stealing, according to the inspired definition of the 
term. And if the servitude of those servants was not 
voluntary, but forced, then their masters were guilty 
of man-stealing, and liable to be put to death by the 
laws that governed them — dead men in the sight of 
their own laws. It is impossible to resist this con- 
clusion. 

We see the reason and truth of Mr. Wesley's de- 
claration, that "all slaveholders are man-stcalers" 
They do in all cases what was done to Joseph, pos- 
sess themselves of human beings without their consent, 
and exact from them involuntary or forced service ; 
and in the sight of God's law, they are all dead men. 
Slavery in all its modifications is man-stealing, and 
nothing but man-stealing, and coupled in the eye of 
the divine law with murder, in the death-penalty ; 
and in this connection it will be found standing in the 
Judgment of the Great Day. 

But many of these servants were rich, and owned 
servants. Ziba, the servant of Mephiboscth, had 
twenty servants. 2nd Samuel ix. 10. How very strange 
would it seem to us for any of the slaves of the South 
to own slaves — to be slave-owners. This cannot be ; 



39 

they can own nothing ; they cannot possess anything. 
All they are, can be, or have, must belong to their 
masters. So says the law of slavery. No man is so 
poor as the slave. Heaven's sun never shone upon a, 
human being so poor as he, so completely robbed of 
all ! And that Ziba and other wealthy servants were 
not Jewish, or hired servants, is proven from the fact 
that they had wealth, and Hebrew servants were poor, 
were sold for their poverty, and could be servants but 
for six years, in which time they could not accumulate 
wealth as hired servants. See Ex. xxi. 2 ; Lev. xxv. 
39 ; Beut. xv. 12 ; and Jer. xxxiv. 13, 14, 

The true nature of Jewish servitude will be further 
illustrated by another peculiarity in the economy of 
that people, viz : the elder brother ship. In the patri- 
archal age, the elder brother was God's priest, and 
offered sacrifices to the Most High, see Gen. xii. T, 8, 
xiii. 18, xxvi. 25, xxxi. 54, xxxv. 7, and Job. i. 5. 
He also was civil ruler or king of his family — had the 
right to rule — Gen. xlix. 3, and 2nd Cliron. xxi. 3. 
He was to rule over the family according to the will 
of the Lord, and offer sacrifices for their sins. In 
the Jewish theocracy the priesthood of Aaron took 
the place of the priesthood of the first-born, which the 
Lord claimed as his — Ex. xxii. 29, and in the estab- 
lishing of the Aaronic priesthood the first-born was 
to be redeemed from the claim of the patriarchal 
priesthood. Numb, xviii. 15, 17. But the civil dig- 
nity continued among the Jews, and to maintain that 
dignity a double portion of the inheritance was given 



40 

hiin. Deut. xxi. 15 to 17. But it did not always oc- 
cur that the first-born possessed this dignity. The 
father could bestow it on a younger son, as did Abra- 
ham on Isaac*who was Ishmael's junior, and Isaac on 
Jacob, Esau's junior. This was in part prohibited in 
Deut. xviii. 15, 16, by debarring the father who had 
two wives from cutting out the first-born, on account 
of any dislike he might have to his mother. Servants 
might become sons, if they had been raised by their 
masters from children, and as sons inherit the birth- 
right or elder brothership ; this provision was. pecu- 
liarly applicable to those who had daughters only. 
Prow xxix. 21. These were not hired or Jewish ser- 
vants, for they did not go into servitude in infancy, 
nor could they be servants for more than six years, as 
we have seen. These were heathen or perpetual ser- 
vants. And these servants, if wise, could have rule 
over sons that were not wise or suitable to rule the 
family, and have part of the inheritance among the 
brethren. The rule might be given them, and they 
placed at the head of the family. Prov. xvii. 2. This 
made the son servant of the father's servant. These 
servants became parts of the Jewish families into 
which they were bought, or sold themselves, and were 
to be governed, as we have seen, by the same laws, 
perform the same duties, and enjoy the same holy 
privileges of worshiping God. They were to all in- 
tents and purposes Jews by adoption or proselytism, 
and as such were a part of God's people. There was, 
in fact, no difference between tho servant and the 



41 

child in any respect ; in proof of which we have the 
declaration of God by the mouth of the a*postle : 
" Now I say that the heir (elder brother), as long as 
he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though 
he be lord of all." Gal. iv. 1. 

We have seen that there were two situations in 
which strangers could obtain a permanent residence 
in the land of the Jews, and worship the God of Is- 
rael according to their law. 1. By becoming servants 
in Jewish families. 2. By purchasing a house in a 
walled town. In either of these situations they could 
become permanent residents of Judea, and members 
of the congregation of Israel. I now call your atten- 
tion to the fact, that these servants were given choice 
of these situations. " Thou shalt not deliver unto his 
master the servant which is escaped unto thee. Ho 
shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place 
he shall choose, in one of thy gates, where it liketh 
him best: thou shalt not oppress him." Deut. xxiii. 
15, 16. Within gates, was in walled towns, where 
strangers might obtain a permanent home, and these 
servants might leave their masters, and establish their 
families in those homes^ without let or hindrance. 
These dwellers or strangers might keep the Lord's 
passover if they were circumcised — as one born in 
the land — in a word, a Jew. Ex. xii. 48. Apply this 
provision of Jewish servitude to any system of slavery, 
ancient or modern, and it destroys it instantly ; no- 
thing but voluntary servitude can exist a single day 
under this divine statute* Now does it not appear, 
4* 



42 

from all these considerations, as clear as anything can 
appear, that the servitude instituted in the 25th chap- 
ter of Leviticus was for the benefit of the servant — 
his religious benefit — and not for the benefit of the 
master? And that these servants could free them- 
selves at any time, and go back to the idolatry of 
their native land ; and when occasion offered to find 
a home in a walled town, to leave their servitude and 
live their, and still enjoy the privileges of the house 
of God. And that this servitude was a door through 
which the heathen could find a way to the true, the 
only altar of the living God, and those sacrifices 
which would secure his favor. In a word, that this 
chapter contains the constitution of the Jewish mis- 
sionary society, by which the perishing heathen might 
be gathered into the fold of God and live forever. 
But, strange to tell, learned divines have perverted 
this merciful arrangement of divine compassion, to 
justify, sustain, and even to make it a christian duty 
to practise the most heaven-daring wickedness ever 
practised by human beings in any age of the world. 
Heaven is not farther from hell, than the 25th chap- 
ter of Leviticus is from giving the most remote sup- 
port to slavery. ; 
There are some other passages of the Old Testa- 
ment which have been used in support of slavery ; 
they have been used as secondary evidence, and re- 
quire but a passing notice ; as Ex. xxi. 20 and 21. 
In this passage the servant is said to be the money 
of the master, and this is given as a reason why t&9 



43 

master should not be punished. But this chapter 
treats of the case of Hebrew servants, which none 
claim to be slaves. It is barely possible that the text 
applies to servants in general — all servants ; but there 
is no positive evidence of it. The marginal reading 
is not punished, but avenged — put to death by the 
avenger of blood, the kinsman of the servant, hence 
the servant must have been a Jew ; a heathen servant 
would likely have had no kinsman to avenge his death. 
If the servant was smitten with a " rod," not a deadly 
weapon, not one calculated to produce death, and live 
a day or two, it should be taken as evidence that the 
master did not intend to kill him, and the avenger of 
blood should not, in that case, fall on him and slay 
him ; and the fact that the master had an interest in 
the life of his servant, for whom he had paid a price, 
or money, was to be taken as evidence that he did not 
intend to kill him ; but it gave the master no right to 
kill him. For in the 12th verse of the same chapter, 
death is awarded as the punishment of " smiting a 
man, so that he die." The service of Hebrew ser- 
vants was paid for in advance, for their sale was to 
relieve them from poverty, or debt, and this could not 
be done unless the sale money was in advance. Ex. 
xxi. 2 ; Lev. xxv. 39, 40, 41, and Deut. xv. 12. But 
if he should not be punished or avenged, because the 
servant was his money, then if the servant died under 
the "rod," the master should not have been punished, 
for the same reason ; for the servant was as much his 
money in the one case as in the other. The weapon, 



44 

a rod, the time the servant lived after the punishment, 
and the interest the master had in preserving his life, 
are associated as evidence that the master did not in- 
tend to kill, and therefore should not fall into the 
hands of the avenger of blood ; but the congregation 
might judge the case. Numb. xxxv. 24, 25. This 
passage does not contain a shadow of evidence in 
favor of slavery. 

The case of Abraham's servants has been adduced 
in favor of slavery, but not mainly relied on. Abra- 
ham was a king in his day, and his subjects were his 
servants ; and a king, too, of power and prowess suf- 
ficient to defeat five kings of his times. Gen. xiv. 
He was in confederacy with the king of the Amorites, 
and with his brothers Eschol and Aner, verse 13. 
Kingdoms were small in those early times, about four 
hundred years after the flood, and Abraham was a 
great king in his day, for he armed at one time three 
hundred servants which had been born in his house. 
It required a large establishment to produce three 
hundred men for battle ; and with this number he 
overcame five kings of his times. It is something 
remarkable that Abraham, a stranger, should, in a 
strange land,, become rich so soon, on the supposition 
of all these persons being slaves ; but it is not sur- 
prising that he should become a king. The family of 
man had become too numerous in his days to live by 
hunting, and grazing and agriculture began to be 
practised. There was but very little agricultural ex- 
perience, and instruments for that purpose must have/ 



45 

been very imperfect ; and flocks and herds were then 
grazed in the woods, and guarded by herdsmen and 
shepherds from wild beasts and banditties of robbers ; 
and this state of things drove men together into small 
bands, for mutual support and protection. The most 
wise and energetic of these bands were chosen for 
their captain. These captains became kings, and 
these bands kingdoms ; and there were many of them 
in these early days. Nine kings met in pitched bat- 
tle when Lot was taken prisoner ; and the five victori- 
ous kings were afterward defeated by Abraham. 
Those little bands formed the first kingdoms after the 
flood, and became the seeds of the great monarchies 
which followed. See Shuckford, Vol. II, pp. 85, 86, 
87, 88. The servants of those early days were sub- 
jects of petty kings. Some twenty years after the 
defeat of the five kings we find Abraham in Gerar, 
the kingdom of Abimelech, fearing before the king, 
and receiving presents and servants from him — a 
great change in his circumstances. And at his death 
no account is given of his heirs possessing his ser- 
vants, nor is there in the case of any of the patri- 
archs giving servants to heirs. That Abraham's ser- 
vants were voluntary servants, or rather subjects of a 
kingdom., in which they had with him a joint interest, 
is found in the fact that they were armed and trusted 
in battle ; and about twenty years after we find him in 
Grerar, without protection. i 

Some contend that the bond-men and bond-maids 
which were to be from the surrounding heathen, and 



46 

the children of strangers spoken of in Lev. xxv. 44, 
45, and 46, which the Jews were to have for a " pos- 
session," and were to take for an inheritance for their 
children after them, to inherit for a possession, to be 
their "bonds-men forever," proves slavery to be of 
divine authority, for these persons were slaves. The 
expression in the 46th verse, " they shall be your 
bond-men forever," is translated in the margin, "ye 
shall serve yourselves of them," &c. The translation 
of the 46th verse is very defective indeed, as every 
Hebrew scholar must admit. The verb na-chal: 
1. he " possessed" enjoyed, occupied; 2. inherited, 
owned; 3. divided, distributed, polluted, prrofancd" 
is translated "to take;" not to take possession of 
them — but to take them for their children after them 
as an inheritance is taken, which is no one of its 
meanings. The principal words, which are translated 
take, are a-chaz. " He seized, caught, took posses- 
sion of." La-chad; " lie caught, seized, laid hold 
of." La-hach; "He took off." Ka-val; " He took." 
Ka-matz ; "He took." Ta-pJuw : "He united." 
.Na-chal is in the hithpael conjugation. Ve-hith na- 
chal-tim ; the verb is second person plural, masculine, 
past tense, given a future signification by the use of 
vov. The hithpael conjugation is reflective, and shows 
what the agent of the verb does to himself, and not 
what another does to him. They were not to take 
the heathen, and the children of those who sojourned 
in their land; but to possess or enjoy themselves of 
them. The meaning is : the Jews and their children 



4T 

after them should possess themselves of "bought ser- 
vants" from the heathen and the children of those 
strangers, forever ; and this agrees with the margin, 
i. e. they should always get this class of servants 
from these sources. The term "forever" has no re- 
ference to the time the servants were to serve ; but to 
the time the Israelites should obtain tins class of ser- 
vants from those two sources. And the original gives 
no support to the idea, that these servants were to be 
a perpetual inheritance for the Jews and their chil- 
dren after them. He who gives it this meaning is 
ignorant of the original, or intentionally dishonest. 
Th^ Jews, and their children after them, were forever 
to obtain, or possess themselves of, this class of ser- 
vants from the heathen, and the children of the so- 
journing strangers. This is the meaning of the orig- 
inal. Indeed, we are shut up to this meaning — it will 
bear no other. 

Some have made a distinction between servants 
and bond-se?*va?its ; but the original makes no distinc- 
tion. In the 49 th verse, where our translation has 
"bond-servant," the original is lo-teth a-vad vo a-bo- 
dath a-ved ; literally, thou shalt not rule over him 
with rigor. Nothing is found in the original for the 
distinction "bond," and this is also the case in the 
44th verse. The original is, ve-aved-ka, ve-a-math-ha, 
a-sher ye-he-yu-laclc, and thy servants and maid-ser- 
vants who shall be to you, or whom you shall have. 
The distinctions are " servants and hired servants, or 
hirelings ; service, and rigorous service. 



48 



There is no other. I am at a loss to conjecture 
•what the prefix " bond," of our translation, could have 
originated from — except the blending influence of 
slavery, which prevailed at the time it was made. 



THE JUBILEE. 

Shuckford informs us, on the authority of Diodorus 
Circulus, that the early nations " had a law against 
slavery : for no person among them could abso- 
lutely loose his freedom and become a bond-nkan." 
Diodorus spent thirty years in writing his histories. 
He visited the different nations of the east,- to learn 
their history ; most of these years were spent in this. 
He had the best opportunities of learning the facts 
as they existed, in and before his time. He wrote 
the history of Egypt, Persia, Syria, Media, Greece, 
Rome, and Carthage, and it is said that he visited 
also the places mentioned in his forty books, of which 
but fifteen are now extant. See Lempriere's Dic- 
tionary — Diodorus. This writer flourished about 44 
before Christ, and knew what had been the state of 
the world up to his time. Shuckford adds, " Many 
heathen writers thought this prohibition of slavery 
was an original institution in the first laws of man- 
kind. Lucian says, that there was such an appoint- 
ment in the day of Saturn, i. e. in the first ages ; and 
Athenrcus (a Greek historian of merit who died A. D. 



49 

194), observes : the Babylonians, Persians, as well as 
the Greeks, and divers other nations, celebrated an- 
nually a sort of Saturnalia, or feast, instituted most 
probably in commemoration of the original state of 
freedom in which man lived before servitude was in- 
troduced ; and as Moses revived several of Noah's in- 
stitutions, so these are appointed in the law to pre- 
serve the freedom of the Israelites." Shuckford, Vol. 
II, p. 80. And this refers to the jubilee as one of 
the Noatic institutions which Moses revived. See 
Shuckford, as above. 

We have still further proof of the design and gen- 
eral use of the jubilee, in the usages of the Romans, 
They kept the feast of Saturn ; the Saturnalia or ju- 
bilee here mentioned, in the days of their worst slave- 
ry ; and their slaves were all free during that feast. 
It lasted, at first, one day, but was afterwards ex- 
tended to three, four, five, and then to seven. The 
slaves took liberties, were permitted to ridicule their 
masters, and to speak with liberty on all subjects, and 
their masters waited on them at table or meals. See 
Lempriere's Dictionary, word Saturnalia, and Adams' 
Roman Antiquities, p. 26. This feast cherished in 
the slave's mind a remembrance of what all men had 
once been, and a sense of what he ought to be. 

From these ancient and highly respectable author- 
ities we learn that the jubilee was revived by Moses, 
to prevent slavery among the Jews ; that it was an 
institution of Noah, to prevent the enslavement of 
any of his posterity; and that it obtained among jill 
5 



50 

the early nations, and that these nations kept an an- 
nual feast in memory of it, which continued among 
the Greeks and Romans long after the introduction 
of slavery among them. Can any doubt, after all 
these proofs, that the jubilee secured freedom to all 
the inhabitants of the land, both Jews and Gentiles. 
It had been the day of freedom from the time of 
Noah up to that time, and continued so to be, until 
slavery banished it from the earth, except in name. 

What a world of light these facts throw upon the 
first sermon the Savior ever preached. " The Spirit 
of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me 
to preach the gospel to the poor : he hath sent me to 
heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the 
captives, and the recovering of sight to the blind, to 
set at liberty them that are bruised. To preach tlie 
acceptable year of the lord." Luke iv. 18, 19. 
Here we have from the Savior's own mouth the design 
of his own mission ; to deliver the captives — give lib- 
erty to the bruised — enslaved — to preach the ac- 
ceptable year of the Lord. The year that ereed 

the BRUISED ; THAT LIBERATED the CAPTIVE THE 

YEAR OF JUBILEE. 

In the light of these facts, which are proven by 
the testimony of early historians of the highest credit, 
and is uncontroverted by a single early writer, — what 
becomes of patriarchal slavery — Abraham's slavery ? 
He lived in the time of the early nations, about four 
hundred years after the flood — a time, when the ju- 
bilee obtained among all nations ; before slavery be- 



51 

fp 

gan to be. And this was also the case, to a great 
degree, in the time of Moses, four hundred years after. 
And the assertion so often made, that the nations 
surrounding the Jews were slaveholding nations, is 
not only 'without proof, but against evidence, clear, 
and pointed. 



CHAPTER II. 



NEW TESTAMENT SERVITUDE. 

The Jubilee secured freedom to all the " inhabi- 
tants of the land;" in it the ear-bored servants, and 
bought servants, were free from their masters. This 
is admitted bj all the commentators I have seen, ex- 
cept Matthew Henry. At the Jubilee, these bought 
servants could leave the family in which they had 
lived, and live independent in a walled town, or renew 
their servitude in some other Jewish families, or in 
the same ones ; or if they had become connected with 
Jews by marriage, be one in th© Jewish families into- 
which they had married. 

The case of the ear-bored servants gave the Jews 
or Jewesses the privilege to remain with their hus- 
bands or wives until the Jubilee, when they could take 
them with them into their own families. The Jewish 
servants were free in the Sabbattical or seventh year; 
but the heathen servants were not free until the Ju- 
bilee. If the master gave his servant a wife, she did 
not go out in the seventh year, nor did her children ■; 
but the servant might remain with his wife and chil- 



53 

dren by Having his ears bored; and the maid-servant 
might remain by having her ears bored. See Ex. xxi. 
5, 6 ; and Deut. xv. 16 and 17. The wife, in this 
case, was a heathen servant ; for if she had been a 
Jewess, she would have been free in the seventh year, 
and could not have remained longer, unless she had 
her ears bored ; Deut. xv. 17. But the husband 
might remain in the same family with his "bought 
servant" wife until the Jubilee; then she and her 
children would be free to go with him into his own 
family, and the last dark speck of heathenism on that 
woman and her family would melt away into the light 
of Judaism, to be seen no more forever. And though 
nothing is said about the maid-servant's husband, it 
is fair to infer the same reasons actuated her, and 
the same consequences would follow. This statute, 
made to preserve sacred the holiness of matrimony, 
has been construed to favor slavery. But the spirit 
of slavery turns to blackness everything it touches. 

The passages of the New Testament which have 
been claimed to support slavery, I propose to examine 
in this chapter. The first I shall notice is the case 
of Onesimus, in the epistle to Philemon. It is claim- 
ed that Onesimus was the slave of Philemon, and that 
the apostle Paul sent him back to his master. 

Philemon lived in Colosse, a city in Asia Minor, 
about two hundred miles east of the Hellespont ; about 
four hundred miles from the eastern border of the 
Black Sea, the land of the wild Scythians, and at 
least nine hundred miles from Rome. The way to 
5* 



54 

Rome was through the States of Greece, or by water 
from Ephesus, which was about one hundred and fifty 
miles west of Colosse. And from this place Onesimus 
ran away, on the assumption that he was a slave. By 
running about four hundred miles north-east, through 
a country free from large streams, he would have 
been out of the Roman empire, among the wild Scyth- 
ians, where he would have been safe from capture by 
his master, or any one for his master ; but he ran 
nine hundred miles, through a country of almost every 
kind of obstructions, where he was exposed to danger 
at every step, into Rome, the great heart of the sys- 
tem of Roman slavery; by whose action the life's 
blood was sent through every part — to the extremi- 
ties of the whole system. If he was a slave, slaves 
had not learned to run away in his day ; they would 
not perpetrate such folly now. If he was a slave, he 
was the greatest fool that ever did run away. He 
acted like a man who was too hot by the fire, who to 
obtain relief would leave his chair and seat himself 
on the grate ; run from the feeble extremities of slave- 
ry into its strong heart, to escape from it. But this 
is not all. He went to hear the apostle preach. Paul 
had been the means of the conversion of Philemon ; 
this is conceded by all ; and doubtless Onesimus had 
seen Paul at the house of Philemon ; and yet he goes 
to hear him preach, knowing that Paul might recog- 
nize him, and either seize him as a fugitive slave, or 
report him to those who would. The conduct of On- 
esimus was most extraordinary, on the assumption he 



55 

was a slave. No slave of common sense would have 
acted as lie did in the same circumstances. 

The apostle tells Philemon, in verse 16, that On- 
esimus is his brother both in the flesh, and in the 
Lord. To be a brother in the flesh was to have the 
same parents, or to be a near kinsman. Onesimus 
was either a younger brother of Philemon, or a near 
relation, and in either case could not be a slave. Dr. 
A. Clarke supposes the term " brother in the flesh" 
to mean one of the same nation. On this assumption 
there is not more than one chance out of one thousand 
that Onesimus was a slave. Roman slavery was the 
slavery of captivity ; this was also the case with Gre- 
cian slavery. The prisoners taken in foreign battle- 
fields were sold by their captors ; and these sales were 
made for the most part in Home, and Italy contained 
the greater part of the slaves of Rome. War was the 
principal fountain that fed Roman slavery ; some were 
born slaves — some were slaves for crime, and some 
were sold for debt, but war was the principal source. 
The facilities for Roman slaves obtaining their free- 
dom were very great. " Cicero says, that sober and 
industrious slaves, at least such as become slaves from 
being captives in war, seldom remained in servitude 
above six years." Adams' Roman Antiquities, p. 26. 
But persons once sold into slavery could not be sold 
a second time — a slave sold once became free, i. e. 
sold once after he became a slave. — Adams' Roman 
Antiquities, p. 35; There was no slave-trade in Ro- 
man slavery; a slave once sold into slavery remained 



56 

with his purchaser until death or freedom ; or, if born 
into slavery, remained with his owner. This made 
Roman slavery a blessed state compared with ours. 
If Onesimus was a slave, he was a captive taken in 
war, the son of a slave-mother, had been sold for debt, 
or sold for crime ; or he might have been sold by his 
father. There was no other way of becoming a slave 
in the Roman empire. But ten times as many were 
enslaved by war as by all the other ways ; and there 
was not one chance in one hundred that he was born 
of a slave-mother. If a captive, he could not be of 
the same country with Philemon, for captives were 
not sold where they were captured. It is not likely 
there were any slave-mothers in Colosse, as we shall 
see presently, or that he was sold into slavery in any 
of the other ways. 

Calmet informs us, on the authority of Roman 
chronology, that Onesimus was ordained JBishop of a 
church in Macedonia, after his return to Philemon, 
and that he succeeded Timothy in the Episcopate of 
Ephesus. The church of that city had been planted 
by the apostle Paul. He spent three years and six 
months labor with it, Acts xx. ; and Timothy, who 
stood next to the apostles among the early ministers 
of Christ, was the successor of the apostle ; and then 
comes a fugitive slave, who in all probability was an 
ignorant barbarian — a stranger to letters and the 
christian religion ;— and if not a barbarian captive, 
either the son of a slave-mother, who was most proba- 
bly a barbarian captive, and born out of marriage, as 



57 

all Roman slaves were ; or he had been sold hj a& 
unfeeling father, or for debt or crime. Could such 
an end as he obtained be reached from any of thes« 
beginnings ? Credulity itself staggers traveling to 
such a conclusion ! The thing is scarcely possible !. 
We have the testimony also of Ignatius, that Onesi- 
mus was Bishop of Ephesus ; he " blesses God that 
they had so good a bishop." Onesimus must have 
been not only a man of considerable education, but 
of great parts, to stand second to St. Paul, in ths 
episcopate of the metropolitan church of all Asia Mi- 
nor, and it is next to impossible that he could hava 
possessed either, if he had been a fugitive slave. 

The apostle declares that Ones5mus was dearer to 
Philemon than he was to him, and fixes on the fact 
that he was his brother in the flesh, as the reason. 
He was Paul's son in the gospel, begotten in his 
bonds — the son of his bonds — more, of his old age. 
He was then a prisoner, awaiting his martyrdom, 
which took place about three years after that time. 
As in nature, so in grace, the children of old age lie 
nearest the father's heart. Onesimus must have been 
very dear to Paul ; but he was dearer to Philemon. 
Onesimus was a young man of great promise and 
parts. He was intrusted by Paul with the epistle to 
Philemon, and, jointly with Tychicus, with the epistle 
to the Collossians, which was written at the same 
time. Onesimus must have been much more than a 
citizen of the same country with Philemon, to have 
been dearer to him than he was to his father in the 



K 



8 



gospel, in the peculiarly endearing circumstances of 
his conversion. Dr. Clark's explanation is wholly 
unsatisfactory. Nothing but the reason given by the 
apostle, "a brother in the flesh," can justify the de- 
claration. To have sprung from the loins of the same 
father, and been nourished in the bosom of the same 
mother — their young lives fed from the same foun- 
tain, and cared for by the same hearts — would justify 
the declaration. But what else could ? It is barely 
possible near relationship might ; but the other would. 
The reason given compels us to understand the de- 
claration literally, in its eastern acceptation, a natural 
brother, or near kinsman. 

In either of these relations he could have been 
the servant of Philemon, not the slave. In the east- 
ern countries the elder brother was the head of the 
family, at the death of the father, as we showed in 
onr first part ; and the younger members of the fam- 
ily were called servants. Indeed, all persons occu- 
pying a lower or less honorable position were called 
servants. Jacob called Esau his lord, and himself 
Esau's servant; Gen. xxxiii. 14., and all persons in 
the employ of another as hirelings, arc called ser- 
vants. The Bible is full of such examples. And 
this is the case in all the countries of Europe, and 
the East, to the present day, where slavery has no 
existence. Slavery has made the term servant de- 
grading, and it is applied to slaves principally in slave 
countries. It is applied to all hirelings out of such 
Countries ; and it is common for persons of considera- 



59 

tion to sign their letters with "your humble servant," 
except in slave countries. As a younger brother, one 
in a less honorable station, or one in Philemon's em- 
ploy, the term would apply — be justified by the cus- 
tom of that age and place. The term servant, as 
here used, makes nothing for slavery. 

But whatever relation the term signified, Paul did 
not send Onesimus back to it ; he sent him back, " not 
as a servant, but above a servant," into a higher con- 
dition than he formerly occupied. See verse 16. And 
Paul required Philemon to transfer any claim he 
might have on Onesimus to his account. So that 
Philemon's claim on Onesimus, let it have been what 
it might, was assumed by St. Paul ; and Onesimus 
was freed from it. See verse 18. Behold how the 
apostle sent back fugitive slaves — assumed their obli- 
gations, and sent them back free ! This is the plain 
fact in this case. And we see in the after exaltation 
of Onesimus, that he did not return to his former con- 
dition. He returned a messenger to the church at 
Colosse, and the bearer of his own deliverance from 
the power of Philemon; and, after his return, was 
made not only bishop, but rose to the highest place 
in the Asiatic churches. Slaveholders are welcome 
to all they can get out of this case. 

Commentators admit that there is testimony that 
Onesimus was bishop of Ephesus, but pass oif the 
subject with "it is hardly, or not probable," without 
attempting to disprove these authorities. But the 
whole want of probability grows out of their assump- 



60 

tion, not only without, but against proof, that he wa-s 
a Roman slave. 

But it is farther evident he was not a slave. 
Slaves were chattels — they were property then as 
they now are ; they could contract no debts, because 
they were themselves property, and property can 
neither owe nor own. The apostle could not assume 
the obligations of a slave, without himself becoming 
a slave ; and this he did not do. If it be contended 
that slaves owe their masters, — what is it they owe ? 
They owe them their persons, their souls. and their 
bodies ; outside of the slave the master has no claim ; 
his claim is in the slave. The slave's indebtedness 
cannot be assumed without becoming a slave — going 
into the slave, -and this Paul did not do. But he did 
assume the indebtedness of Onesimus to Philemon; 
therefore Philemon could not have been a slave- 
holder. 

But if Onesimus was a younger brother, a kins- 
man, or even a hired servant, he could have owed 
Philemon a debt that the apostle could have assumed ; 
and the term servant would have applied to any or all 
of these relations, as we have just seen. It is not 
possible to reconcile what is said of Onesimus, in this 
epistle, with the assumption that he was a slave ; and 
his history outside of it demonstrates beyond a doubt 
that he was not a slave ; and if he was not a slave, 
we have no proof that Philemon was a slaveholder, 
nor Paul a slave-catcher. The assumption that St. 
Paul was a slave-catcher is only equaled by that of 



61 

the angel of God turning blood-hound, in the case of 
Hagar. Paul never returned a slave, nor even a ser- 
vant ; he assumed Onesimus' obligation, and sent him 
back free. This fact is set forth in the epistle as 
clearly as anything can be. 

The New Testament argument for slavery is this : 
The epistles were addressed to the churches, and the 
duties of the members of those churches pointed out 
in the different relations they sustained to society and 
to each other. These relations are clearly recognized 
and their duties distinctly pointed out. And that 
masters and serva?its are among those parties to rela- 
tions, and the duties of masters and servants divinely 
imposed ; hence masters and servants were members 
of the churches to which these epistles were written. 
This is the argument for slaveholders having been 
members of the primitive church, and for their right 
to membership in the church of Christ, in all after- 
time. This argument takes for granted that the term 
master means slaveholder, and the term servant means 
slave. If this can be proved, the argument is conclu- 
sive ; but if it can not, it is wholly worthless. 

The proof adduced to sustain these assumptions is 
the meaning of certain Greek words, such as doulos, 
kurios, despotes, &c. It is argued that doulos means 
slave, and it is generally rendered servant in the New 
Testament, — that servant, in the epistles, is equivalent 
to slave. The word doulos is nowhere translated 
slave. The word slave is found but once in the New 
Testament, in Revelation xviii. 13, where the Greek 
6 



62 

is 8omato?i, and not doulos. If we substitute the word 
slave for servant, throughout the New Testament, as 
we have a right to do, according to the plea set up, that 
servant is equivalent to slave, we would have some 
singular reading : " Well done, thou good and faithful 
slave;" Matthew xxv. 21. "Lord, now lettest thou 
thy slave depart in peace, according to thy word;" 
Luke ii. 29. "If any man serve me, let him follow 
me, and where I am there shall my slave be;" John 
xii. 26. "And whosoever will be chief among you, 
let him be your slave;" Matthew xx. 27. "Paul, a 
slave of Jesus Christ;" Rom. i. 1. "I commend un- 
to you Phebe, our sister, who is a slave of the church 
which is at Cenchrea;" Rom. xvi. 1. "For though 
I be free from all men, yet have I made myself a slave 
unto all, that I might gain the more;" 1 Cor. ix. 10. 
" For do I now persuade men or God, or do I seek to 
please men ? for if I yet please men, I should not be 
the slave of God ;" Gal. i. 10. " Now I say that the 
heir, as long as he is a child, differcth nothing from a 
slave though he be lord of all;" Gal. iv. 1. "And 
Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a slave;" 
Hebrews iii. 5. " Simon Peter, a slave and an apostle 
of Jesus Christ;" 2 Peter i. 1. "Jude, a slave of Je- 
sus Christ ;" Jude 1. "The revelation of Jesus Christ, 
which God gave unto him, to show unto his slaves 
things which must shortly come to pass, and he sent 
and signified it, by his angel unto his slave John;" 
Rev. i. 1. " And I fell at his feet to worship him. 
And he said unto me, see thou do it not, I am thy 



63 

fellow slave;" Rev. xix. 10. (This would prove slave- 
ry in heaven). " Henceforth I call you not slaves, 
for the slave knoweth not what his lord doeth ; but I 
have called you friends ; for all things that I have 
heard of my father I have made known unto you ;" 
John xv. 15. " These men are the slaves of the Most 
High God, which do shew unto us the way of salva- 
tion;" Acts xvi. 17. "Ye are bought with a price, 
be not ye the slaves of men ;" 1 Cor. vii. 23. "Eor 
we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord ; 
and ourselves your slaves, for Jesus' sake;" 2 Cor. 
iv. 5. " Paul and Timotheus, the slaves of Jesus 
Christ;" Phil. i. 1. "Saying, hurt not the earth, 
neither the sea, nor the trees, till I have sealed the 
slaves of God in their foreheads;" Rev. vii. 3. "And 
a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our 
God, all ye his slaves, and ye that fear him, small and 
great;" Rev. xix. 5. "And there shall be no more 
curse, but the throne of God, and of the Lamb shall 
be in it and his slaves shall serve him ;" Rev. xxii. 3. 
Many other passages might be adduced to show the 
extreme absurdity of this application of the term. 
But if making God and Christ slaveholders, and ex- 
tending the territory of slavery into heaven, and 
making the glorified spirits there slaves, will not turn 
the minds of the advocates of slavery from this per- 
version of the Holy Scriptures, they are redemption- 
less. 

The word kurios, translated master, is nowhere 
translated slaveholder, in the New Testament; the 



64 

■word slaveholder nowhere occurs In that sacred book. 
It is truly very strange, that if doulos mean3 slave, 
and kurios slaveholder, that neither of them should 
have been translated right in the whole of the New 
Testament. This word is sometimes applied to Christ ; 
if it means slaveholder, then he who came to preach 
liberty to the ,bruised, and establish the acceptable 
year of the Lord, was himself an oppressor and slave- 
holder. 

The word despotes, translated master, is sometimes 
applied to God himself; hence the Most High is a 
slaveholder, and slavery the great central relation of 
the Universe, if this pro-slavery explanation be ad- 
mitted. The friends of slavery rant either give up 
their definition of the meaning of these words, or take 
these consequences. If they will have the first, they 
must have the second. These words are variously 
used ; doulos is applied to all kinds of servants ; ku- 
rios and despotes to all kinds of masters — or all kinds 
of persons to whom service is due ; and the exact 
meaning of either of them must be ascertained by the 
application of it, where used ; it never can be done 
by bandying definitions. We may find the word dou- 
los applied to every condition of servitude ; and the 
others to all kinds of claimants for service. The 
Athenians used the word oiketai, to denote slaves, and 
doulos to denote persons who had been freed from 
slavery, or freed persons.* But these words do not 

* " Slaves in Athens who were held as the entire property of 
their masters, were called oiketai ; but if their freedom was grant- 



65 

Bettle the question, because the words are general, 
and not specific in their application or use. All I 
claim is that these words do not prove that servants 
means slaves, and masters— slaveholders, in the New 
Testament, and this I have certainly made appear. 

There are two kinds of servitude, involuntary and 
voluntary. The first includes the slaves, children who 
are minors, apprentices bound without their consent, 
which is seldom clone, and persons sentenced to labor 
for crime. The second, hired servants or hirelings, 
apprentices bound with their consent, and all who 
serve from choice, either for reward or affection. 
These two classes of servants have existed from the 
introduction of slavery to the present time, and will 
continue to the end of slavery. Voluntary servitude 
has existed from the commencement of human society, 
and will continue to the end of time. It is one of the 
most extensive relations in society, — one that can not 
be dispensed with. The wants of society compel its 
existence. This relation differs from that of slavery 
as far as the poles are apart. Voluntary servitude 
involves reciprocal duties of man to man— both mem- 

ed them they were called doulos, not being, like the former, a part 
of the master's estate, but only regarded as rendering some small 
service, such as was required of metoikai, resident strangers, or 
aliens, to whom, in some respects, they were inferior." This the 
reader will learn by consulting Dr. W. Robinson's Antiquities of 
Greece, page 30, and Potter's Grecian Antiquities, Vol. I. page 13 ; 
and see also an article in the Biblical Repository, for Jan. 1835, 
en "Slavery in Ancient Greece," "Testimony of God against 
g^very," page 86. 

6* 



66 

bers of the relation are human beings, having separate 
and independent rights, and free to maintain those 
rights. They are equal in freedom, and in the pro- 
tection of the law — they stand up man to man, on the 
common platform of human rights. Not so with the 
relation of slavery, if it may be called a relation ; for 
it is rather a condition than a relation. One part of 
this relation is wholly passive in the hands of the 
other — is absolutely in the power of the other, to be 
controlled in everything, — has no rights — no protec- 
tion, is unknown in law, as having any claim on the 
other for anything. The Roman master could dispose 
of his slave at will, he could even take his life ; the 
blave had not even the right to live. The slave was 
property to all intents and purposes, and sustained 
the same relation to his master, the horse did to his 
owner. They were both the property of the master, 
and equally subject to his control. It would be diffi- 
cult for the Scriptures to regulate the relation of own- 
er and horse farther than " the merciful man is mer- 
ciful to his beast." Thus much might be said to the 
owner of a slave, and the slave might be required to 
regard the will of the master as the rule of his life, 
but this he has to do. 

Different relations involve different duties, and as 
the relations of hireling and employer, and owner and 
slave, are different, fundamentally and practically, 
they must involve duties of equal differences ; duties 
arise from the nature of the relations, and must vary 
as much as the relations differ. And if the duties of 



67 

masters and servants, in the New Testament, apply 
to owners and slaves, then the relation of hireling and 
employer, one of the most extensive relations among 
human beings, one extending to all lands and all times, 
is not regulated in the Scriptures, and we have no 
knowledge of the mind of God on the duties of these 
very numerous parties ; for no difference is made in 
the duties of masters or servants in the New Testa- 
ment, where the duties of these relations are specified ; 
and if the duties there specified do not apply to hired 
servants and their employers, the duties of these par- 
ties are nowhere stated. And it can not he that the 
same duties can apply to this relation, and that of 
slavery too. This is impossible, from the fundamental 
differences of these relations. It was certainly a great 
oversight in the divine lawgiver, to leave undefined 
the duties of one of the most extensive relations of 
his accountable creatures. 

But it may be contended that if the duties under 
notice apply to hired servants, and not to slaves, that 
the duties of masters and slaves are nowhere found in 
the New Testament. Be it even so ! The duties of 
whoremongers and adulterers are nowhere pointed out 
in the word of God, and yet this is no defect. Rela- 
tions which God prohibits, he does not regulate ; hence 
he does not point out the duties of adulterers and for- 
nicators — -of murderers and thieves, because he never 
intended these practices to have any place in society ; 
and this is also the case with slavery, 

I now proceed to show that the duties of masters 



68 

and servants in the New Testament apply to hirelings 
and their employers, and not to masters and slaves. 
For the use of the terms master and servant, the reader 
ia referred to what is said on the case of Onesimus, 

The duties of servants are specified in five places. 
In St. Paul's epistles, Eph. vi. 5 to 8 ; Col. iii. 22 to 
25 ; 1 Tim. vi. 1 ; 1 Tit. ii. 9, 10 ; and 1 Peter, ii. 
18, 19 ; and the duties of masters in but two. Mark 
this ! Eph. vi. 9, and Col. iv. 1. The duties of mas- 
ters are given in these places in connection with the 
duties of servants; the duties of the masters in the 
other three are not specified ; and as these epistles 
were not given to the same persons or churches, it 
would seem in the latter cases that the masters were 
not members of the churches, or their duties would 
have been specified. 

We will notice first those places where the duties 
of servants and masters are jointly given. 

'- Servants, be obedient to them that are your 
masters, according to the flesh, with fear and tremb- 
ling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ ; not with 
eye service, as men pleascrs ; but as the servants of 
Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with 
good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not unto 
men." — Ephesians vi. 5 to 7. 

" Servants, obey in all things your masters, ac- 
cording to the flesh ; not with eye service, as men 
plcasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God ; and 
whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and 
not unto men." — Colossians iii. 22, 23. 



69 

The term, "masters according to the flesh ," used 
in both these places, limits obedience to secular things. 
God was their master in spiritual things. The term 
flesh is used in contradistinction from the term spirit, 
and shows here to what the claims of the masters ex- 
tended — shows the extent of their claims — and where 
the servant's obedience ended. All belong to secular 
affairs. And the masters were to be obeyed in all 
tilings within this prescribed limit. The servant was 
to serve with fear and trembling. But whom was he 
to fear ? his master or his God ? The advocates of 
slavery say, his master ; for Roman slaveholders could 
not only punish their slaves with great severity, but 
put them to death. But the masters in these places 
were to use no violence to their servants. They were 
to forbear even to threaten them ; for though this 
prohibition is not found in Colossians, the duties of 
both parties are substantially identical, and point to 
the same masters ; this will not be questioned. Mas- 
ters who were not permitted to use the force of a 
threat, could not be the objects of fear unto tremb- 
ling. They were required to render their service as 
to God, and not to man ; not to do it as men pleasers, 
but to please God, to whom they would have to give 
an account, and from whom they were to have a re- 
ward of eternal approbation or displeasure. God, 
who could destroy both soul and body in hell, and 
who would do it if they were unfaithful, was the ob- 
ject of the fear here required ; and not the master, 
who dare not even threaten punishment, much less 



70 

inflict it. The eyes of the servants in both these 
places are turned from the master on earth to the 
master in heaven — from man to God. God's require- 
ments are to govern, and God's fear to influence. 
They are required to obey their masters in all things, 
not with an eye to please men (masters), but to please 
God, to whom both master and servant would have ti 
give an account. 

The obedience of the hired servant is limited by 
his contract, and the master's authority is limited by 
the same. The servant agrees to do certain things 
for a certain reward, or to spend a certain amount of 
his time in the master's employ, at such work as his 
master may have to do, and to do it as the master 
wishes to have it done. The parties are mutually 
bound — their obligations are mutual. The master's 
authority to command extends to all things involved 
in the contract, and the hired servant is bound to 
obey in all things to this extent, but in nothing be- 
yond the agreement entered into ; so that just as far 
as the master has any right to command, the servant 
is bound to obey — bound by the contract entered into. 
Not so with the slaveholder. His right to command, 
has no limit — had none in Rome — has none in Amer- 
ica. The right of the Roman master extended to 
life itself; and what he might do himself, he might 
do by his agent — his slave ; had a right to command 
his slave to take the life of a fellow slave — to commit 
murder, — the highest crime known to the Divine law. 
And if the slave (servant) was to obey the slaveholder 



71 

in all things, " not only the good and gentle, but also 
to the froward," then were christian slaves under ob- 
ligations to God to commit murder, if their masters 
might happen to command them so to do. And there 
was constant danger of their doing it. Roman mas- 
ters frequently killed their slaves. They did it, not 
with their own hands, as a general thing, but with 
the hands of their domestics — their slaves: Adams' 
Roman Antiquities, p. 25. If the obedience required 
of servants, in the passages under notice, is to Roman 
slaveholders, then is the servant bound to commit sin ; 
for many of these masters were wicked idolators, and 
would require their slaves to do wrong ; and if the 
slaves were bound to obey in all things, which the 
master had a right or power to command, then indeed 
were they bound to commit sin, for the master's 
authority is nowhere abridged. But the very nature 
of voluntary servitude limits the master's power defi- 
nitely, and needs no specific guards ; the servant in 
this case is bound to do what he voluntarily agrees to 
do, and the master has a right to command him to 
the same extent, but no farther. No need of limita- 
tions of the master's power here. Its limits were 
fixed before the servant came under it. Not so with 
the slaveholder's power ; it has no limit, either in the 
law of slavery, or in the law of the apostle ; obedi- 
ence in all things is required by both. The slavery 
interpretation of these texts must be given up ; or the 
apostle required the commission of sin. This conclu- 
sion can not be resisted. 



72 

We will now look at the duties of the masters of 
these servants : 

" And ye, masters, do the same things unto them 
(servants), forbearing threatening, knowing that your 
master also is in heaven ; neither is there respect of 
persons with him." — Epliesians vi. 9. 

" Masters, give unto your servants that which is 
just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master in 
heaven." — Colossians iv. 1. 

If the duties of servants connected with these 
masters could not be reconciled with a state of slavery, 
as we have just seen, much less can the duties here 
specified. The masters are positively required not to 
use threatening to their slaves ; and as the prohibition 
of the les3 includes the greater, they were forbidden 
the use of all force, and then required to give unto 
their servants a just and equal compensation for the 
services rendered. The services of the servants were 
to be obtained without the force of even a threat ; the 
servant was not to be put in fear of the master, in 
any degree; and the service thus obtained to be re- 
warded with & just and equal compensation. This is 
the servitude the apostle regulates ; and those regu- 
lations are attempted to be applied, first, to Roman 
slavery, a system of legalized human butchery ; and 
second, to " American slavery, the vilest thai ever 
saw the sun." Voluntary servitude can live in .the 
fear of God — live well, and live long, under these 
regulations, as we have seen ; but Roman or Ameri- 
can slavery could not live one hour; the very first 



breath they would draw of this apostolic regulation 
would collapse their infernal lungs, and they would 
instantly die. Remove all force, even the force of 
threats, from slavery, and give to slaves a just and 
equal equivalent for all they do, and the last thread 
of the system is annihilated. Apply these regula- 
tions to slavery, and I want no more. It will not 
live a day, no, not an hour 1 

These two passages are the only places where the 
duties of slaveholders are mentioned, if the term 
master means slaveholder ; and if it do not, then 
slaveholders had no place in the apostolic church. 
The duties of masters are nowhere else noticed. And 
the duties imposed on masters, and the only duties, 
and all the duties, if carried into effect, would imme- 
diately, totally, and forever abolish slavery. No 
more need be adduced to prove that these texts apply 
to voluntary servitude, and not to slavery. And 
here I might rest the argument; for the other texts 
are addressed to servants, and not to masters and 
servants, if slaves might have been members of the 
church and their master not. 

But if it be claimed that the term, " master ac- 
cording to the flesh,'''' limits the authority of the mas- 
ters, I reply that the power of the Roman or Ameri- 
can slaveholders is an authority every way unbounded, 
extending to every act of the slave's life ; the slave is 
bound to conform his whole life to the will of his 
master — who is at once master of flesh and spirit — 
and can command obedience by any inflictions he may 
7 



74 

choose to impose, short of taking limb or life, in 
America ; and even these could be taken in Rome. 
New Testament masters were secular masters, with 
limited authority : slaveholders are sovereign masters, 
no power can step between them and their slaves. 

" Let as many servants as are under the yoke 
count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the 
name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. 
And they that have believing masters, let them not 
despise them, because they are brethren, but rather 
do them service, because they are faithful and be- 
loved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach 
and exhort." 1 Timothy vi. 1, 2. 

It is contended that hupo zugan, which is here 
translated "under the yoke," designates the con- 
dition of slaves ; that the yoke is the badge of the 
most cruel bondage. The yoke signifies a state of 
subjection; any kind of subjection. It is used for 
representing the ceremonial duties of the law. Act3 
xv. 10 ; Gal. v. 1 ; for the duties of the religion of 
Christ, Matt. x. 29, 30. It is used in Gen. xxvii. 40, 
to represent the dominion of Jacob over Esau, in the 
matter of his father's blessing; in Jer. xxx. 8, it is 
used to represent the captivity of the Jews. In Lev. 
xxvi. 13, it represents the bondage of the Israelites 
in Egypt. In Ezck. xxxiv. 27, it represents the cap- 
tivity of the Jews. It is used in Deut. xxviii. 48, to 
denote national subjection. In 1 Kings xii. 4, it re- 
presents the rule of David over the people of Israel. 
It is used to represent the national subjection of the 



75 

nations to Nebuchadnezzar, Jer. xxviii. 14. The rule 
of the Assyrian monarch is called a yoke, Isa. xiv. 
25. And in xlvii. 6, it is used for the rule of the 
Chaldeans over Israel. In Jer. xxviii. 2, 4, 11, it re- 
presents the dominion of the king of Babylon. It 
represents the burden of transgressions, Lam. i. 14, 
and the duties we owe to God, Lam. iii. 27. I have 
failed to find a single place in the Holy Scriptures 
where it represents the state or condition of a slave. 
Instead of yoke denoting the absolute subjection of a 
Blave, as its primary meaning, as is claimed by the advo- 
cates of slavery, I can find no place where it is thus used. 
These servants under the yoke were to count their 
masters worthy of all honor, but they were not re- 
quired to obey them in all things. Nothing of this 
kind appears. But if the masters here mean Roman 
slaveholders — another name for human butchers — it 
would be exceedingly hard to count them worthy of 
all honor or respect. But the believing masters in 
the 2nd verse, as distinguished from these masters of 
the yoke, show that they were not members of the 
church. The caution not to despise their believing 
masters shows that these servants could not have 
been slaves — for what Roman slave dare despise his 
master, in whose hands was his very life. The ser- 
vants are required to do service to these believing 
masters rather than to others, because they are par- 
takers of the benefit. If they were slaves, they 
could have no preference whom they served ; no 
choice of masters ; their masters choose them. But 



76 

these persons are required) to prefer the service of 
their believing masters — a dkeet acknowledgment of 
their voluntary servitude. 

The reason given for servants under the yoke r 
counting their masters worthy of all honor, is that the 
name of God, and his doctrine, be not blasphemed. 
Did the character of God and the purity of his doc- 
trine require that human butchers should receive hon- 
or from his worshipers I For this Roman slaveholders 
were. Some of them murdered their slaves, and made 
food of their flesh to feed their fish. Must such men 
be honored to maintain! the character of God aad his 
doctrine ? But it may be said that the masters to be 
esteemed were not of this class. There was but one 
class of slaveholders in Rome ; some were doubtless 
more cruel than others \ but the difference was in the 
temper of the master, not in his power or authority ; 
what the worst did, all might do. Roman slavery was 
one system ; and Roman slaveholders were one in 
power, and equal claimants of authority from that 
system. And these masters were unbelievers, and 
distinguished from the believing masters in the next 
verse, and were just as likely to be the worst as the 
best pagan masters. That christians should be re- 
quired to honor such monsters is incredible \ but that 
they should clo it to keep the people from blaspheming 
a pure and holy God, and his doctrine of justice and 
universal love, is positively past belief 

But admitting these masters to be employers, and 
these servants to be hirelings, all is easy. The ser- 



77 

vants were just as much bound to fulfill their engage- 
ments with unbelievers as with believers ; and to do 
it respectfully and kindly ; and thus secure honor to 
God and his doctrine. This is all easy and plain ; 
but the other application is hard, obscure, and forced ; 
yea, forced to death. 

This place recognizes believing masters, masters 
who were members of the church ; but their duties are 
not specified. It is claimed that they were slavehold- 
ers, and the servants who were required to rather 
serve them, than unbelievers, were slaves. But this 
conclusion is forced. The servants are required not 
to despise them, but to serve them cheerfully. These 
directions have no application to slaves, who were the 
property of their masters, and subject to their will, 
even to life itself. But they apply to hirelings. These 
might with impunity lightly esteem even believing 
employers ; yea, despise them, and give them no pre- 
ference over others ; these things would be wrong in 
this class of servants, and there was danger of their 
commission ; hence the necessity of the caution. But 
they could not exist in the case of slaves ; and the 
caution in their case would have been wholly unneces- 
sary. This verse gives no proof of slaveholders being 
members of the church of the New Testament. It 
points with great clearness to hired servants and their 
masters ; but slaves and slaveholders can not be seen 
in it, or through it. And this, and the places in 
Ephesians and Colossians which have been examined, 
are all the places in the New Testament, which ever 
7* 



78 

hate been, or ever can be, claimed in support of slave- 
holders being members of the New Testament Church. 

" Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own 
masters, and to please them well in all things ; not 
answering again ; not purloining, but shewing all 
good fidelity ; that they may adorn the gospel of God 
our Savior in all things." — Titus ii. 9, 10. 

The directions given here apply to hired servants 
in every particular. They were bound to obey by 
their contract of service, and to do their work as the 
master desired to have it done, and to do it pleasant- 
ly, not disputing about how it should be done ; they 
were bound not to purloin ; for they were to receive 
an equivalent for all they did; and therefore they 
were morally bound to fulfill their engagements in 
good faith — " in all good fidelity," and by so acting, 
the gospel they professed could not be blamed. The 
character of the religion they professed, and the mo- 
ral obligations it imposed on them, required this course. 
They could neither honor the Savior, nor please him, 
without complying with these requisitions. Not so 
with slavec ; God, who is no respecter of persons, does 
not require a being that must please him in every- 
thing, to be subject to the will of an absolute despot, 
to obey those who can not be obeyed without disobey- 
ing him; to please "in all things." those absolute ty- 
rants, whose authority to command extends to limb 
and life ; who can command against the command- 
ments of God, and very frequently do so. To obey 
•uch persons, and to please them in all things, is not 



79 

a christian duty ; nor does a just God require any 
man to serve another in all good fidelity, and be sub- 
ject to his arbitrary will, from childhood to the grave, 
for no compensation or remuneration. Indeed, no 
man can be bound to obey and please in all things an 
arbitrary master, for any amount of compensation ; 
because he is bound to obey and please God, in all 
things, and can not serve two masters : than which 
nothing can be plainer. Nor is it contrary to the 
principle of justice, for a man to enjoy the fruit of his 
own labor ; for the slave to take some of his products 
for the comfort of his own body, when hungry or 
naked. The doctrine of God, our Savior, would not 
be adorned by the slave's compliance with these re- 
quisitions ; but the human butcher would be exalted 
into the place of God. 

Not so in the case of hired servants. They may 
even obey in all things, and they may please in all 
things their master, without displeasing or dishonoring 
God ; for the extent of their obedience and man-pleas- 
ing was settled before their service began ; and if they 
feared God, they would not bind themselves to do 
anything that would displease him ; but except all 
euch things out of their obligations. Their obedience 
and man-pleasing was the result of their own choice ; 
and there need be no wrong in them. But the slave 
had no choice what should be in or out of his obliga- 
tions to obey and please. They were just what an 
absolute despot chose to have them, and no being ac- 
countable to God can be morally bound by any such 



80 

obligations. Here I set my foot, and challenge the 
advocates of slavery to meet me here, hand to hand. 

I say, in the language of Jabez Bunting, of the 
Wesleyan Methodist Connection of England, that 
"Slavery is always wrong, — essentially, eternally, 
and incurably wrong," and can impose no moral obli- 
gation. The slave is under no moral obligation to 
his master, as his master. There is not a single re- 
quirement of chattle slavery that is binding. No, not 
one ! Slavery is not a subject of moral regulation 
any more than theft or murder ; and there is not a 
passage in all the Word of God, that points out the 
duty of a slave, AS A slave. JVo, not one. He is 
under moral obligation as a man, but not as a slave. 
There is not a single moral obligation resting on a 
slave, but rests on free men ; or that did not rest on 
him before he was a slave, if he ever was a free man, 
Slavery creates no new moral obligations. Some good 
anti-slavery men have admitted that some of the di- 
rections given to servants were given to slaves. But 
this is not correct. Slavery, no more than murder, 
can be a subject of moral regulation. That which is 
essentially and eternally wrong has nothing in it on 
which the claim of morality can rest. Morality re- 
quires its destruction, not its regulation. G-ooVs law 
lias no claim on the slave, as a slave — can not have; 
for he is out of the order of God's moral government, 
as a slave ; but as a man he is in it — -bound by it — 
accountable to its great author. But so obscured has 
been the light of truth, by the mist of tears and blood 



81 

of slaves which the earth has sent up to heaven, that 
men who saw the monstrous iniquity of slavery did 
not see that it could not be a subject of moral regu- 
lation. 

Relations instituted by the Creator are of moral 
obligation, and apply to all the situations in which 
man can be placed. We owe duties to each other, 
and we owe duties to our Creator ; and we can be 
placed in no situation where we are free from duty. 
The relation of husband and wife, parent and child, 
ruler and subject, employer and employed, are of di- 
vine appointment or sanction ; and the duties of these 
relations are of moral obligation. These relations are 
right, and moral obligations grow out of them ; and 
the relation of Creator and creature applies to every 
human being, so that we are never free from moral 
obligation. The slave is under moral obligation to 
God, and God tells him how to act while wronged by 
his fellow man ; to do good for evil, return blessing 
for cursing ; if smitten on the one cheek to turn the 
other also. Not because any man has a right to in- 
flict evil on another, or curse another, or smite an- 
other, but because God's plan is to overcome evil with 
good, and we are to be co-workers with him. The 
slave may learn his duty to God in his oppressed sit- 
uation ; — but this is a very different thing from his 
duty to his master. If I am smitten on the one cheek 
by a wicked man, I am under no obligation to him to 
turn the other — or if he do me evil or curse me, I do 
not owe good or blessing to him for so doing ; but I 



82 

owe it to God so to act in these circumstances, and 
this requirement growing out of my relation to God, 
and not my relation to him, is no authority for, or 
sanction of, his wrong-doing. And though the slave 
is under no moral obligation to his master to suffer 
wrongfully at his hand, he is under obligation to his 
Creator, so to do, when wronged by any man. If 
slavery be wrong, the slaveholder forces himself into 
a wicked relation to his slave ; takes a position God 
never designed him to occupy : and to admit that the 
slave is under moral obligation to his master, is to 
give sanction to his master's claim, which would be 
giving sanction to wrong. This can not be. And 
while I maintain that the slave is under no moral ob- 
ligation to his master as a slave, I must be understood 
that as a fellow man he is under obligations to render 
him good for evil, in consequence of his relation to 
his Creator ; but even this is not because the one is 
master and the other slave, but because both are men, 
subjects of a common Creator. 

" Servants, be subjects to your masters with all 
fear ; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the 
frowarcl, — for this is thankworthy, if a man for con- 
science toward God, endure grief, suffering wrongful- 
ly."—! Peter ii. 18, 19. 

No sanction is given to this servitude, for it is 
more than intimated that the servants suffered it 
wrongfully. And no intimation is given that the 
masters were believers or members of the church. 
And it is highly probable that some slaves were con- 



83 

Yerted to the faith in the apostles' day. The servants 
are exhorted to suffer wrong for conscience toward 
God. Christians are not allowed to free themselves 
from grief or wrong by doing wrong ; and when they 
cannot free themselves without doing wrong, they must 
imitate the Savior, suffer wrong, rather than do it. 
But to suffer wrong for conscience sake gives no sanc- 
tion to it. 

The word rendered servants here is oiketai, and 
not douloS) which Robinson and Potter think was used 
by the Athenians to signify slaves, while doulos sig- 
nified freed men — persons freed from slavery. (See 
note on p. 64). But oiketas does not always mean 
slave, but rather distinguishes house-servants from other 
servants. It comes from oikos, a house. M'Knight 
thinks that house-slaves were used much worse than 
field-slaves, and needed this special instruction. But 
the very reverse is true. But domestic hirelings are 
exposed to more unreasonableness than any other 
hired servants. And they might be bound in con- 
science to fill their engagements, though their em- 
ployers were not treating them as they should be treat- 
ed. This might be the case, and their obligations be 
still binding, and the reward for their labor still sure. 
But it is difficult to see how a slave could be bound 
by an enlightened conscience to endure all the grief 
and wrong of Roman slavery patiently. 

The commands of God are all addressed to free 
agents, and implies a power to comply, or refuse com- 
pliance ; and it would seem that these servants might, 



84 

or might not, be subject to their masters ; they might, 
or might not, endure grief, or suffer wrongfully. This 
would all be true of voluntary servants, but all untrue 
of slaves. But these masters, whether slaveholders, 
or employers of hirelings, were wrong-doers, and not 
christians, or members of the christian church, and 
this passage makes nothing for the position I am op- 
posing. The reader will see, I think he can not help 
but see, that these passages contain no evidence that 
slaveholders were members of the New Testament 
church — that hirelings, or voluntary servants, and 
their employers, or masters, are the parties whose du- 
ties are marked out in these scriptures. 

It is pleaded that the New Testament nowhere 
condemned Roman slavery, and anti-slavery men have 
admitted that, though it was not condemned by name, 
all its elements were condemned, and this was all that 
was needed. This ground is perfectly tenable ; but 
while it is good and true, the argument is spread 
through the Scriptures, and not easily seen, nor seen 
at once. I contend that slavery, by all the names it 
is known in the Word of God, is condemned clearly, 
positively, and heavily in the New Testament. The 
Hebrews had no word for slavery but man-stealing. 
The stolen man was all the slave known to that people. 
The term slave occurs but once in the Old Testament, 
Jer. ii. 14, and but once in the New, Rev. xviii. 14. 
In the first, there is nothing in the original for the 
word slave, and the translators put it in italics to show 
that fact. The literal translation would be, "J* Is- 



85 

yael a servant, is he born in the house?" and in tbt 
isecond the word is somaton, bodies. " Traded in bo- 
dies and souls of men." To force a man to serve an- 
other was to steal him ; hence all slaves are stolen 
men, and all slaveholders men-stealers. I refer the y 
reader to what is said on man-stealing in our first 
chapter. That all slaveholders are man-'stealers, is 
bo plain that those who contend for slaveholders, hav- 
ing been members of the New Testament church, ad- 
mit that slavery is man-stealing, and slaveholders 
man-thieves. This position was taken by the Presby- 
terians of this country, from 1794 to 1816, twenty- 
two years. Jonathan Edwards held the same doctrine, 
" To hold a slave, who has a right to his liberty, ig 
not only a real crime, but a very great one. Does 
this conclusion seem too strong to any of you ? You 
will not deny that liberty is more valuable than pro- 
perty ; and that it is a greater sin to deprive a man 
of his whole liberty, during life, than to deprive him 
of his whole property, or that man-stealing is a greater 
crime than robbery. Nor will you deny that to hold 
in slavery a man who was stolen, is substantially the 
game crime as tQ steal him." — Edwards. Mr. Wesley 
eays, " il/^-buyers are exactly on a level with men- 
stealers." Dr. A. Clark says: "I here record my 
testimony against the unprincipled, inhuman, anti- 
christian, and diabolical slave-trade, with all its au- 
thors, promoters, abettors, and sacrilegious gains, ag 
well as against the great devil, the father of it and 
them." — Notes on 1 Corinthians, 7th chapter. Rich- 
8 



86 

ard Watson says : " Slavery was man-stealing in its 
origin, and with this vicious origin it remains tainted 
tintil this day." — Life of Watson, p. 380. Doctor 
M'Knight says, " They who make war for the inhuman 
purpose of selling the vanquished as slaves, as is the 
practice of the African princes, are really men-steal- 
ers. And they who, like the African traders, en- 
courage that unchristian traffic by purchasing the 
slaves, whom they know to be thus unjustly acquired, 
are partakers of their crime." — Note on 1 Tim. i. 10. 
Dr. Clark says : " Slavedealers, whether those who 
carry on the traffic in human flesh and blood, or those 
who steal a person in order to sell him into bondage ; 
or those who buy such stolen men and women, no mat- 
ter of what color, or what country, are men-stealers, 
and God classes them with the most flagitious of mor- 
tals."— Note on 1 Tim. i. 10. 

Drs. M'Knight and Clark both contend for slave- 
holders having been members of the New Testament 
church. I might adduce more similar testimony, but 
this would not prove the point that slaveholding is 
man-stealing ; it would however be presumptive evi- 
dence. Man-stealing is a crime known to the law of 
God, and I showed in my first chapter that slavehold- 
ing is that crime. See pp. 34 — 38. Does the New 
Testament condemn men-stealers f If it does, it con- 
demns slaveholders ; for that is the only name they 
are known by in the Word of God. St. Paul classes 
them with the lawless, for whom the law was made, 
with murderers of fathers, and murderers of mothers, 



87 

with man-slayers, fyc. — with the greatest monsters in 
crime the world ever saw ; with the wretch who stands 
smoking with the blood of her in whose bosom his 
young life was nourished ; the euphony of whose name 
thrills the soul as no other sound can. What sound 
wakes in the heart such sensations as the word, MY 
mother ! The heart that is unmoved to kindness by 
a mother's look, a mother's word, a mother's touch, is 
far gone in crime ; but the man that can shed the 
heart's blood of a mother is a monster of unequaled 
depravity. And to be classed with such a wretch is 
the highest condemnation ; and here the New Testa- 
ment places slaveholders. In the Old Testament they 
are classed with the red-handed murderer, in the death- 
penalty, and in the New with murderers of fathers, 
and murderers of mothers. This is where the God 
of the Bible classes them ; and here they must stand, 
whether in the church, or out of it. Is not such a 
classification a condemnation of slavery ? If it is not, 
nothing can be. 

I am aware that in the views here taken, I oppose 
a host of wise, learned, and good men — nearly all the 
commentators of the church — men greatly my supe- 
riors ; but it must be specially noticed that the slavery 
question was not the question of their day and times. 
These men were capable of understanding this subject, 
but it had not become a question for examination. 
No one thought it wrong when they wrote. Mr. 
Henry wrote his commentary within a few miles of 
Liverpool, when the bay of that city was white with 



88 

the sails of slave-ships, and the "whole christian world 
either engaged in the slave-trade, or consenting to it. 
The best eye must look at objects to see them, and 
the feeblest can see, by looking, what the best can 
not, without looking. This is just the case with thos* 
great, good, and learned men. They did not examine 
this subject ; and if I see, by looking, what they did 
not see, without looking, it is no reflection on their 
discernment, nor any assumption of superior wisdom 
in me. 

Let us look at the character of the New Testa- 
ment church. i 

"Who 'gave himself for us, that he might redeenv 
m from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a pecu- 
liar people, zealous of good works." — Titus ii. 14. 

" If any man defile the temple of God, him shall 
God destroy ; for the temple of God is holy, which 
temple ye are." — 1 Cor. iii. 17. 

" Who hath saved us and called us with a holj 
oalling."— 2 Tim. i. 9. 

" For God hath not called us lo uncleanness, but 
to holiness." — 1 Thess. iv. 7. 

" For we are his workmanship, created in Christ 
Jesus unto good works, which God hath before or- 
dained that we should walk in them. — Eph. ii. 10. 

" But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest- 
hood, an holy nation, a peculiar people ; that ye 
should shew forth the praises of him who hath called 
you out of darkness into his marvelous light." — 1 
Pet. ii. 9. 



89 

t The gospel-church was to be the model-church of 
the world, in all after-ages — of the mountain of the 
Lord's house, into which all nations were to flow, Isa. 
ii. 2 ; and in which no hurt or destruction was to be, 
Isa. xi. 9. It was to be the remedy for all the evils of 
the world. Into it no evil was to come ; and into it 
all nations were to come, by leaving off their sins ; 
and thus the whole earth was to be blessed with the 
reign of righteousness. But all these commentators 
admit that slavery is not only an evil, but a very great 
evil ; one which the gospel is intended to remove from 
the world, and will ultimately remove it. This is their 
position. But then they take into the gospel-church 
that which the gospel is to remove from the world by 
its church ; for the church is the means by or through 
which the gospel operates. Remove the gospel-ehurch 
from the earth, and the gospel goes with it, and just 
as the church gives up gospel principles, the world 
loses them. How can the church remove an evil from 
the world while it gives that evil a home in its heart ? 
Echo answers, how? No such position could have 
been taken if the subject had been examined. 

But to leave general principles, and come to par- 
ticulars. Dr. Clark says, "In heathen countries, 
slavery was in some sort excusable i among christians 
it is an enormity and a crime, for which perdition has 
scarcely an adequate state of punishment.''— Note on 
5ph. vi. 5. Yet he agrees with other commentators 
that slaveholders were members of the gospel-church. 

JlUS CHOSEN GENERATE, THI& R$YAL PRIESTHOOD, 
8,* 



90 



THIS HOLY NATION, THIS PECULIAR PEOPLE, was Com- 
posed in part of criminals almost too bad for hell, tho 
abode of devils damned. Could any man of Dr. Clark's 
capacity fall into such a monstrous absurdity — such a 
gross and glaring inconsistency, who had given the 
subject anything like an examination ? It could not 
be ! And what is true of him, is true of the rest ; 
and the weight of great names ought not to weigh 
against plain truth, or the position of small names, 
when it is demonstrable that they have given opinions 
without examination. 



CHAPTER III. 



ANCIENT SERVITUDE. 

It has been taken for granted that because slavery 
was in the Roman Empire, it was in all parts of 
it ; but this is a great mistake. Roman slavery was 
never in England, though that island once belonged 
to Rome ; and this is true of many other countries 
over which the conquests of that empire extended. 
The slavery of Rome was the slavery of war ; most 
of her slaves were taken captives in foreign battle- 
fields. These were brought by their captors to Rome, 
and sold ; and were, for the. most part, bought by per* 
sons living near the Imperial City. This resulted in 
tilling Italy with vast numbers of slaves. Some are 
said to have had twenty thousand. See Roman An- 
tiquities, p. 28, and Gibbon s Rome, Vol. I. p 25 ; 
for the number, and for the fact that Rome was the 
great slave market, see Roman Antiquities, pp. 25 
and 26. In the time of Claudius, A. D. 50, the in- 
habitants of the Empire were estimated at one Jiun- 
4re4 and twenty millions. The slaves were supposed 



92 

to be equal to the citizens, and the provincials twice 
the number of citizens, which would make the num- 
ber of slaves about thirty millions. But I think it 
doubtful if the number was ever more than twenty 
millions, if that many. 

Slavery was extensive in Greece, but nothing like 
so extensive as in Rome. The principal States of 
Greece engaged in slavery were Sparta and Athens. 
The slavery of the first was rigorous, that of the 
second, mild. The States of Greece were not all 
slave States. In the Peloponnessian war, in which 
the States of Greece struggled with each other twen- 
ty-seven years, we have in Rollin the names of the 
following States : The States of Peloponnesus, 
Lacedaemon, Achaea, Pellene, Megara, Locris, Bceotia, 
Phocis, Ambracia, Leucadia, Anactorium, Chios, Les- 
bos, Platsea, Messenia, Naupactus, Arcania, Corcyra, 
Cephalencia, and Zacynthia, no less than twenty 
States separately named, and quite a number are in- 
cluded in Peloponnesus, and Lacedsemon. Far the 
larger portion of the Greek States never owned slaves. 
Mark this. See Rollin, Vol. II. p. 144, chapter 
III. The War of Peloponnesus. 

The slaves of Athens were either taken prisoners 
in war, or bought of others who traded in slaves, and 
were kindly used, as a general thing. When the 
slaves were treated with too much rigor and inhu- 
manity, they had their action against their masters, 
who were obliged to sell them to others, if the facts 
were sufficiently proved. They could ransom them- 



93 

selves, even against their master's consent, when they 
had laid up money enough for that purpose. For 
out of what they got by their labor, after having 
paid a certain proportion to their masters, they kept 
the remainder for themselves, and made a stock of it 
at their own disposal. Private persons, when they 
were satisfied with their services, often gave these 
slaves their liberty, when the necessity of the times 
obliged the State to arm and enlist them for war 
among the citizens. 

" The humane and equitable usage with which the 
Athenians treated their servants and slaves was an 
effect of the good temper natural to that people, and 
very remote from the austere and cruel severity of 
the Lacedaemonians, in regard to their Helots, which 
often brought their republic^) the very brink of de- 
struction." — RolUn, Vol. II. p 344. 

Lacedsemon and Athens were the principal States 
of Greece ; these held slaves, but we have no well 
authenticated account of any of the other States be- 
ing involved in slavery. From these States and 
Rome sprang the slavery which stands connected with 
the New Testament church. 

I shall first prove that there was a time when 
there was no slavery in the world, and that the spirit 
and institutions of that age reached into nations now 
claimed by many as slaveholding nations. Shuckford, 
giving the history of the nations planted by Noah, 
and his descendants, says : — They had a law against 
slavery ; for no person among them could absolutely 



94 

lose his freedom, and become a bondsman." Shujh* 
ford's Connections, Vol. II. p. 80. 

Many heathen writers corroborate this testimony 
of Shuckford with precision and clearness. Luci- 
anus, or Lucian, a celebrated writer of Samosata, 
who was appointed by the emperor M. Aurelius, on 
account of his great learning and merit, Register to 
the Roman Governor of Egypt, says that " there 
was such an appointment (or law) in the days of Sat- 
urn, i. e. the first ages." He died A. D. 180, in the 
90th year of his age. Lucian in Saturnal, by Shuck- 
ford, Vol. II. p. 80. 

The time of Saturn, mentioned by Lucian, was 
about eight hundred years after the flood, in the time 
of Moses, 1500 B. C. Saturn was the son of Ccelus, 
and the father of JupIRr, and grandfather of Her- 
cules, who was a young man at the time of the Arga- 
nautic expedition, 1262 B. C, according to Gillies' 
Greece, p. 15. Allowing seventy years for a gen- 
eration, which is quite long enough, will place Saturn 
about the time of Moses, 820 years after the flood,, 
and 400 years after the time of Abraham. Saturn 
was dethroned by his son Jupiter, and fled to Italy,, 
called Latium, from lateo, to conceal. He was re- 
ceived with marks of kindness by Janus then king 
of Italy, who made Saturn his partner on the throne ; 
and the time he reigned jointly with Janus was af- 
terward known as the golden age of the world. See 
ILemprieres Dictionary, names Saturn, Jupiter, Her* 
eules, and Janus. 



95 

- Shuckford makes the statement that the early na«- 
lions had a law against slavery, so that no person 
could lose his freedom and become a bondsman, on 
the authority of Diodorus, Book II. § 39, p. 88, ed. 
Rhod. Diodorus was a native of Sicily, from which 
he was called Diodorus jSiculus. He wrote forty 
books of history. This valuable composition, which 
is said to be a judicious compilation from Berosus, 
Timaeus, Theopompus, Callisthenes and others, by 
some, was the work of an accurate inquirer, and it is 
said that he visited every place mentioned in his his- 
tory. He spent thirty years, in this great work, and 
it contains the history of Egypt, Persia, Syria, Media, 
Greece, Rome, and Carthage. He flourished about 
fifty years before Christ. He may be ranked as the 
father of profane history ; and had much better op- 
portunities of knowing the condition of the early na- 
tions than any other writer whose works have reached 
us. His declaration as given above is unequivocal 
and without a single exception : " They had a law 
against slavery ; for no person among them could ab- 
solutely lose his freedom and become a bondsman." 
See Lemprieres Dictionary, name Diodorus. 

Athenaeus, a Greek historian of great merit, who 
wrote fifteen books of remarks and anecdotes of the 
ancients, and a history of Syria, and a miscellaneous 
work called Deipnosophisloe, and some other works 
now lost, observes, " that the Babylonians, Persians, 
as well as the Greeks, and divers other nations, cel- 
ebrated annually a sort of Saturnalia, or feast, insti- 



96 

tuted most probably in commemoration of the origin- 
al state of freedom in "which men lived before servi- 
tude was introduced ; and as Moses revived several of 
Noah's institutions, so there are appointments in the 
law to preserve the freedom of the Israelites ;" and 
refers to Lev. xxv. for these appointments. — Athense- 
us, book 14, p. 639, as given by Shuckford, Vol. II 
p. 80. 

Here is a positive declaration that there was a 
time when there was no slavery among the nations, 
and that the Saturnalia was most probably instituted 
to commemorate this golden period. The probability 
applies to the reason of the institution of the Satur- 
nalia, and not to the early institutions of freedom ; 
and the declaration is also positive that these institu- 
tions of freedom, which are attributed to Noah, were 
appointed in the law to preserve the freedom of the 
Israelites. Here we have three of the most reputable 
early historians, Diodorus, JLucian, and Athcnieas, 
bearing a united testimony to the fact that the early 
nations had institutions which prevented any person 
from becoming a bondsman or slave. And the testi- 
mony of Lucian brings this period up to the time of 
Moses. 

Plutarch in his comparison of Numa and Lycur- 
gu3 says : " If we be obliged to admit the sanguinary 
and unjust treatment of the Helots, as a part of the 
politics of Lycurgus, we must allow Numa to have 
been a far more humane and equitable lawgiver, who 
permitted absolute slaves to taste of the honors of 



97 

Freemen, and in the Saturnalia to be entertained 
along with their masters ; * for this also, they tell us, 
was one of Numa's institutions, that persons in a state 
of servitude should be admitted, at least once a year, 
to the liberal enjoyment of those fruits which they 
had helped to raise. Some, however, pretended to 
find in thi3 custom the vestige of the equality which 
subsisted in the times of Saturn, when there was nei- 
ther servants nor master, but when all were upon the 
same footing, and, as it were, of one family." — Plu- 
tarch's Lives, Vol. I. p. 162. 

We find the following note appended : 
* The Saturnalia was a feast celebrated on the 
14th of the kalends of January. Besides the sacrifices 
in honor of Saturn, who, upon his retiring into Italy, 
introduced there the happiness of the golden age. 
Servants were at this time indulged in mirth and free- 
dom, in memory of the equality which prevailed in 
that age ; presents were sent from one friend to an- 
other ; and no war was to be proclaimed, nor offend- 
ers executed. It is uncertain when this feast was in- 
stituted. Macrobius says it was celebrated in Italy 
long before the building of Rome ; and probably he 
is right, for the Greeks kept the same feast under the 
name of Chronia. Maerob. Saturn. I. i. c. 7. 

Plutarch flourished in the time of Trajan, who 
died A. D. 117. He was honored by that emperor, 
and is admitted to be the best early writer whose work 
has come down to our time. He is positive in the de- 
claration that, in the time of Saturn there was no 
9 



98 

slavery. He says that some were of opinion that tha 
feast of Saturnalia was a vestige of the equality which 
existed in the " times" of Saturn. Of this he does 
not speak so confidently, but he doe3 speak confident- 
ly on the state of society in the " times" of that ruler. 
" There was neither servant nor master, but all were 
upon the same footing, and, as it were, of one family." 
Here we have a fourth witness of high authority and 
undoubted credit, that there was no slavery in the 
" times" of Saturn, who reigned jointly with Janus in 
Italy, in the times of Moses. 

The note based on the authority of Macrobius was 
added by a later hand, most probably the translator's ; 
but it states distinctly the same fact, that there was 
an equality in the days of Saturn, and that the Satur- 
nalia of the Romans, and the Clironia of the Greeks. 
were instituted and annually kept to commemorate 
that state of society. Macrobius flourished about A. 
D. 400. He died A. D. 415. Ho wrote a work on 
the Saturnalia of great merit and learning, and also 
a commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipi07ii3. Thi* 
historian also testifies that there was no slavery in 
the times of Saturn. 

Numa died B. C. 672, something over 800 years 
after the reign of Janus and Saturn. Some time in 
this period of 800 years, slavery found its way into 
Home, or Italy, and the Saturnalia was instituted to 
commemorate the golden age of the world. Macro- 
bius says it was before the building of Rome, which 
would place it before the times of Numa, who s-uo- 



99 

eeeded Romulus on the throne ; it was celebrated in 
the times of Numa, but how long before we do not 
know. 

Macrobius makes the fifth early historian who 
bears positive testimony that there was no slavery in 
the early nations ; and three of them, Lucian, Plu- 
tarch, and Macrobius, bring this state of things up to 
the times of Saturn, who was cotemporaneous with 
Moses. Diodorus says it was the case with all the 
early nations, without saying anything about when it 
began, or when it ended ; and Athenaeus attributes 
this institution of freedom to Noah. Put these testi- 
monies together, and we have clear and positive his- 
torical proof that freedom reigned in all nations from 
Noah to Moses ; and this is all the proof the subject 
admits of. And this testimony is uncontradicted by 
a single early writer, either of credit, or of no credit. 
In the light of these facts, what becomes of the de- 
claration so often made by D. D.'s, and others, that 
the nations around the Israelites, in the time of Moses, 
had slaves, of whom the Jews bought their slaves, or 
bond-servants — that slavery existed in the patriarchal 
age, and that Abraham was a large slaveholder? 
Wnat ? It stands forth a baseless assumption, made 
for the basest purposes, to prop up one of the greatest 
sins that ever dishonored God, or cursed man. These 
testimonies are a full and complete confirmation of 
the doctrine of our first chapter, that the bond-ser- 
vants provided for in Lev. xxv. were not slaves, but 
voluntary servants, and that Abraham was not a slave- 



LofC. 



100 

holder, because there was no slavery in the world in 
those times. The ease of Joseph may be brought to 
sustain the assumption that slavery existed before the 
time of Moses, but we shall show, when we come to 
take up objections, that his case is in harmony with 
these testimonies. We can clo it, and will do it. 

We learn from Gen. vi. that the violence of the 
old world was great — that men were giants, and made 
a violent use of their strength — abusing the weak. 
The fair presumption is, that slavery was the great 
sin of the old world ; great strength violently used 
would produce slavery as a consequence. And if slave- 
ry was the sin and ruin of the old world, as we have 
a right to infer it was, we see the reason and fitness 
of the institutions established by Noah. We have no 
evidence that civil government was instituted before 
the flood ; all that is said of that age is favorable to 
the idea, that family-government was all the govern- 
ment which then was ; and parental authority, the 
only authority of that age of the world. This would 
give ample opportunities for the introduction of slave- 
ry, and the exercise of the most cruel, yea, shocking 
violence, which really was the case. The institution 
of civil government after the flood, which we find in 
Gen. ix. 5 and 6, where God requires the community 
to protect the individual. This is the first intimation 
we have of the community having authority to call 
individuals to an account. The institution of civi} 
government, and the institutions of Noah for the 
security of "freedom, were the protections for the 



101 

weak, under which the re-peopling of the earth com- 
menced. 

" Diodorus Sieulus," says Shuckford, Vol. II. p. 
89, " has given a full and true account of the ancient 
Egyptian constitution, where, he says., the land was 
divided into three parts : — 1. One part was the 
priests', with which they provided all sacrifices, and 
maintained all the ministers of religion.. 2. A second 
part was the king's, to support his court and family, 
and supply expenses for wars, if they should happen ; 
and he remarks that the king having so ample an es- 
tate, raised no taxes upon his subjects. 3. The re- 
mainder of the land was divided among the subjects, 
whom Diodorus calls soldiers, not making a distinc- 
tion, because subjects and soldiers in most nations 
were the same, and it was the ancient practice for all 
that held lands in a kingdom to go to war when occa- 
sion required. He says, likewise, that there were 
three other orders of men in the kingdom, husband- 
men, shepherds, and artificers ; but these were not, 
strictly speaking, citizens of the kingdom, but ser- 
vants or tenants, or workmen to those who were the 
owners of the land and cattle." — Diodor. Sic. liber 1, 
§§72, 73, p. 06." 

Shuckford, in the same volume, and on the same 
page, gives the following from Herodotus : " The 
Egyptians were divided into several orders of men ; 
but he takes in the tillers of the ground or husband- 
men, the artificers and shepherds, who were at first 
.only servants employed by the masters of the families 
9* 



102 

to whom they belonged, and not free subjects of the 
kingdom, and adds an order of seamen, which must 
be of a later date. Herodotus's account might per- 
haps be true respecting their constitution in times 
much later than those of which I am treating. There 
is one thing very remarkable in the first polity of 
kingdoms ; namely, that the legislators paid a surpris- 
ing deference to the parental authority or jurisdiction 
which fathers were thought to have over their chil- 
dren, and were extremely cautious how they made 
any State laws which might affect it." 

No mention is made of slaves in any of these di- 
visions, and Shuckford says Diodorus " has given a 
full and true account of the ancient Egyptian consti- 
tution ;" and Herodotus, who speaks of a later period, 
says nothing of slavery. One thing is plain, there 
was no slavery in Egypt when they wrote. But we 
have other evidence on this point. Rollin corrobo- 
rates the statement of Shuckford, relative to the 
lower orders in Egypt, the shepherds, husbandmen, 
and artificers ; and so far from any of them being 
slaves, he says, " Husbandmen, shepherds, and arti- 
ficers, formed the three lower classes of lower life in 
Egypt, but were nevertheless had in very great esteem, 
particularly husbandmen and shepherds." He says 
further, " all professions, to the meanest, had their 
share in the public esteem, because the despising of 
any man, whose labors, however mean, were useful to 
the State, was thought a crime." — Vol. I. p. 122. 
Here we have nothing like slavery, and this is not all, 



103 

Rollin says, in Vol. I. p. 113, " Whatever was the 
condition of the woman, whether she was free or a 
slave, her children were deemed free and legitimate;" 
and gives Diodorus, liber 1, p. 72, for authority. 
Polygamy was allowed, but the children of any one 
of a man's wives were legitimate. Here was an up- 
rooting of hereditary slavery. No system of slavery 
could exist by any chance in Egypt. 

"The most excellent circumstance in the laws of 
Egypt was, that every individual, from his infancy, 
was nurtured in the strictest observance ot .hem. A 
new custom in Egypt was a kind of rail aele. All 
things there ran in the old channel ; i se exact- 

ness with which little matters were adhered to, pre- 
served those of more importance; coi. itly, no 
nation ever preserved their laws and cu ma longer 
than the Egyptians." — Rollin, Vol. I. . !>:. 

These facts, in the history of the I :ns, con- 

firm still further the position that the y nations 
were free from the curse of slavery. 

But, it may be inquired, if there w>: • .slaves in 
Egypt, how could there be any slave mothers, which 
Rollin mentions ? We answer, the pare . ! authority 
was regarded as paramount by the legi : .tors of all 
the early nations; and, as Shuckford says, great def- 
erence was paid to it in State laws. " When Romu- 
lus had framed the Roman constitution he did not 
attempt to limit the powers which parents were 
thought to have over their children ; so that, as Dio- 
nvsius of Halicarnassus observes, a father had foil 



104 

« 
power either to imprison or enslave, or to sell, or to 

inflict the severest corporeal punishment upon, or to 
kill his son, even though the son, at that very time, 
was in the highest employment of the State, and bore 
his office with the greatest public applause. And when 
Nurna attempted to limit this extravagant power, he 
carried his limitation no farther than to appoint, that 
a son, if married with his father's consent, should, in 
some measure, be freed from so unlimited a subjec- 
tion." — Shuckfoixl, Vol. II. p. 90. 

We have a proof of the authority the laws cf the 
early nations allowed parents to exercise over their 
children in the case of Jepthah and his daughter, in 
Judges xi. Parents might sell their children, but this 
slavery could not last in Egypt but for the life-time 
of the person sold, if so long ; for the institution of 
Noah, which Athemeus says Moses appointed in the 
3 aw, in Leviticus xxv., set all free every fifty years, 
and broke up ail the slavery of one life that could 
exist in Egypt, and all the slavery which might arise 
from the sale of children in any other place, even al- 
lowing parents cvei^where to have the same power 
over their children that Romulus permitted them to 
have in Rome, which is very doubtful. Diodorus ob- 
serves, " that no person could absolutely lose his free- 
dom and become a bondsmann" or slave; but they 
might suffer a temporary loss, and the victims of this 
temporary loss might for a time be bond-men, or 
bond-women, and bond-women might be mothers ; and 
the special law of Egypt secured freedom to their 



105 

children, so that a slave could not be born there ; and 
those temporary slaves were all free in the year of 
release, which was called by Moses the year of Jubi- 
lee, which year of release, Athen^eus says, was insti- 
tuted by Noah, to prevent the enslavement of his pos- 
terity ; and which, according to Diodorus, existed in 
all the early nations, and consequently in Egypt. A 
slave could not be born in Egypt, and the year of re- 
lease freed all who might be sold into bondage by 
their parents. 

There was doubtless a few of this class there, but 
not enough to entitle them to a classification in the 
divisions of Egypt. The presumption is, that their 
number was very few. Confine slavery to the sale of 
children by their parents, and then have a year of 
Jubilee every fifty years, and no system of slavery 
can exist ; a few cases may be found, and but a few, 
and these few will be so identified, by consanguinity, 
with the other portions of the State, as never to form 
a class with any separate interest. This is, we think, 
the true state of the case ; and this was all the slave- 
ry found in any nation on earth, until after the days 
of Moses. 

War was not a source of slavery, so far as wc 
have been able to discover, until the enslavement of 
the Helots by the Spartans, B. C. 1058 years, and 
about 500 years after the times of Saturn, when there 
was no slavery, nor could be any, as we have seen t 
from the testimony of early historians, of the highest 
credit, except in the case of parents sometimes selling 



106 

their children, as we have noticed above. The fair 
presumption is that the state of things which existed 
ia the days of Saturn and Moses, continued to the 
time of Agis of Lacediemon, B. C. 1058, when slave- 
ry proper began. From this root, conquest slavery 
might spread into Italy before the building of Rome, 
which was more than 300 years after, and gave full 
time for the institution of the Saturnalia we men- 
tioned in connection with the reign of Numa, the 
second king of Rome. From Saturn to Numa was 
over eight hundred years, sufficient time to produce a 
great change in Italy. 

From the same root, conquest slavery might have* 
spread into Scythia, as the Greeks, had colonies and 
commerce at that time on the shores of the Black 
Sea. This slavery recognized the right of the con- 
queror to enslave captives taken in war, which wo- 
und to be the case among the Franks as late as the 
time of Clovis, A. D. 507. The slavery of Greece, 
Rome, Scythia and the Franks, made slaves of cap- 
tives, which is strong evidence of a common origin^ 
all being the same in this great principle. 

We have no account of slavery among the Per- 
sians. Their government was a perfect despotism, 
and made political slaves of the whole nation ; but 
there were no class of persons slaves to any other 
class of persons. We have no account of any change 
of the state of things, spoken of by Diodorus, in this 
nation. We have shown, from the very best authori- 
ties, that slavery was prohibited in that nation^ as 






107 

late as the days of Moses, and it is for those who 
differ with us to show when it was introduced, if 
slavery ever existed there. And this is the case with 
Syria, and other eastern nations ; and this they have 
not done, nor can they do it. 

If there was slavery in Asia Minor at the time 
the epistles were written to the churches in that part 
of the world, it was either Greek or Roman slavery; 
•for there was no other, except Scythian, as wo have 
seen, to be there. And if Grecian slavery was there, 
it was taken there either through the early Greek 
settlements, or by the conquest of Alexander. We 
will examine both these grounds of claim for its in- 
troduction. And if Roman slavery was there, it was 
taken there after the conquest of that country by the 
Romans. This we will also examine. 

The Greeks had considerable settlements in Asia 
Minor. They possessed for a long time some of the 
best portions of that delightful country. These set- 
tlements commenced immediately after the Heraclidae 
recovered Peloponesus, which is set down by chro- 
nologers 80 years after the taking cf Troy, 1104 
years before the christian era, and bQ years before 
the conquest of the Helots, which was the beginning 
of slavery proper in the world. See Rollin, Vol. I. 
p. 414, and Lemprierc's Dictionary, Heraclida?. 

Slavery was not an element in these settlements, 
at their commencement, for it had no existence in 
Greece at that timo ; and we have no account of ita 
existence there at any future period. These settle- 



108 

ments commenced about four hundred years after the 
times of Saturn, in which there was no slavery in the 
world, as we have seen. In all the wars of these 
colonies with the Lydians, as given by Gillies and 
other historians, no mention is made of slavery, so 
far as those histories have met our eye. 

The great mistake on this subject is looking at the 
early and eastern nations through the eyes of Greeks 
and Romans. The literature of the early ages, the 
young world after the flood, was principally destroyed 
in the burning of the Alexandrian library, in the 
reigns of Aurelian and Theodosius, which amounted 
in all to 700,000 volumes ; 400,000 were destroyed in 
the reign of the first, and 300,000 in that of the 
second. We have to depend on Greek and Roman 
history for an account of the early ages. These 
writers were under the influence of the institutions 
and sentiments of their own nations and times, which 
were slaveholding nations. They looked back on the 
past ages, through the medium of their own times, 
and saw them in the color of that medium. Slavery 
was their name for servitude, and they called servi- 
tude by that name, and servants slaves. But when 
we come to gather up the few scraps of early history 
which remain, we find that the slaves spoken of by 
these writers were not slaves, but hirelings, or tributa- 
ries. They have the world teeming with slaves, more 
than one thousand years before there was any slavery 
proper on earth. We see the influence here spoken 
of on the minds of those who live in our day ; they 



109 

can see slavery in the institutions of Moses, and in 
the practice of the patriarchs. Thej honestly think 
they see it where it never was, and so declare. This 
was the case with the Greeks and Romans. We must 
look to the constitutions and laws of the early nations 
to know the truth touching this matter, and not to 
what Greek and Roman slaveholding or pro-slavery 
historians or poets say, apart from those constitutions 
and laws. 

The Spartan Greeks enslaved those they conquer- 
ed or took prisoners in war ; all the Greeks did not 
do this. The Romans did the same ; and they would 
look on prisoners of war as such, and call them by 
that name, notwithstanding this practice originated 
with the Spartans, after some of the great nations of 
the east had reached their zenith, an (j, were tottering 
to their fall. These nations had pushed their victo- 
ries and built their empires before the idea existed of 
making slaves of prisoners, — some of them long be- 
fore. But by those writers, those prisoners are called 
slaves, though nothing could be farther from the truth. 
That prisoners taken in war were oppressed and cru- 
elly treated, we do not dispute ; but this oppression 
and cruelty was governmental, not individual. They 
were not sold to individuals as slaves, and thus op- 
pressed and cruelly treated, placing over them one, 
or ten thousand tyrants, that their oppression might 
be the more complete. This was a refinement of 
cruelty which was not reached at once. The slaves 
©f the Spartans were national slaves ; indeed, every- 
10 



110 

thing was national, after the laws of Lycurgus were 
adopted by the Spartans, which was 174 years after 
the taking of Helos. The slavery of Rome was indi- 
vidual, not national, and so was that of the feudal age. 
But the prisoners of the ancients were not slaves, but 
victims of governmental oppression. 

European writers have been in the same situation. 
Feudal slavery existed in Europe until near the time 
of African slavery in most of the nations, and in some 
of them until after the introduction of that worst of 
systems. The influence of slavery warped their minds, 
and made them see things through, the blood-stained 
medium of their own times. We must take what these 
■writers, as well as the writers of Greece and Rome, 
^ay on the subject of slavery, with many degrees of 
allowance for the influence of the state of society 
■svith wbich they were connected, and look beyond 
their simple declarations to the constitutions and laws 
of the nations of whom they speak. This is the only 
way we can reach the truth on this subject. AVe have 
seea the effect of this course relative to the slavery 
of the early ages. 

The Grecian conquests under Alexander the Great 
are claimed by some as a means of extending slavery 
into the countries of Asia Minor. Rut it must be 
kept in mind that Alexander was not a slaveholder, 
or of a slaveholding nation. He was a Macedonian. 
Greece had been subdued by his father Philip, and 
though the Greeks and Macedonians were from the 
same common stock, they had been separated in na- 



Ill 

tional existence for about 470 years before the time 
of Alexander the Great, and about 450 years before 
the conquest of Greece by Philip. We have no evi- 
dence that slavery was an element in the kingdom of 
Macedon ; and this is also true of a large majority of 
the States of Greece. It was the kingdom of Macedon, 
and not of Sparta, or the republic of Athens, that 
Alexander extended into an empire, and its principles, 
and not theirs, were the principles on which that em- 
pire was based. The princes of Macedonia claimed 
to be the descendants of Hercules, and in the pride 
of their ancestry claimed superiority over the rulers 
of neighboring States, and finally made good that 
claim. It is not probable that Alexander would give 
up the principles of his own kingdom, that had been 
governed for near five hundred years by the descend- 
ants of one of Greece's mightiest gods, for those of 
any of the States of conquered Greece ; and this he 
must have done, or his conquests could do nothing for 
the extension of slavery. In the history of his con- 
quests, which is detailed at length, we have not been 
able to find a particle of evidence that slavery was 
either increased or extended by him out of Greece. 
Before he left Greece he sold 30,000 Thebans for 
slaves, but after he crossed into Asia we hear no more 
of selling prisoners. See Life of Alexander by Plu- 
tarch, Vol. III. p. 251. 

It seems that some of Alexander's officers took 
with them slaves from Greece, and that some of theso 
slaves made their escape from their masters in Asia 



112 

Minor. Seleucus lost a slave, Alexander ordered 
strict search to be made &>r him ; he ordered that 
Peucerus be commended for having seized a runaway 
slave of .Cr&terus ; and directed Megabyzus, if pos- 
sible, to draw another slave from his asylum, and take 
him, "but not to touch him while he remained in the 
temple." Plutarch's Life of Alexander, Vol. III. 
p. 284. If Alexander was so careful and minute in 
his letters of business as to notice three fugitive slaves, 
he surely would have given some account of making 
slaves of his prisoners,, had this been the case. But 
those three runaways is all the notice we can find of 
slavery out of Greece in his life, or the history of his 
times. If others have, they have been more unfor- 
tunate than we ; for we regard it as a misfortune to 
find anything, anywhere, in favor of oppression*. 

But if Alexander introduced slavery into Asia 
Minor, by his conquest, why not into Asia Major ? 
It is not pretended that he carried Grecian slavery as 
far as the Ganges, or even across the Euphrates. 
And there is just as much evidence that he established 
slavery in Indus by the battle of Hydaspes, as that 
he did so in Asia Minor by the battle of the Granicus. 
There is not a particle of proof for either. 

It is worthy of special notice that a Grecian slave 
was safe in the temple of the gods in Asia Minor. 
Megabyzus was positively forbidden to touch the slave 
while in the temple. Slavery could not be maintained 
whore the gods were against it, and their temples 
were asylums for runaway slaves, and this seems to 



113 

have been the case in Cilicia in Asia Minor, and to 
be so well established that Alexander would not allow 
it to be disregarded on any acconut. 

Previous to the conquests of Alexander all Asia 
Minor belonged to the great Persian empire. This 
empire was free from slavery from the beginning to 
the end. History gives no account of slaveholders in 
any part of it. The government of that empire was 
an absolute despotism, giving the power of life and 
death over all its subjects to the emperor ; the sub- 
jects were all the most abject political slaves ; and 
were reduced below the power required to hold slaves. 
This is the true state of the case. The emperors were 
regarded as a kind of deities. See Rollin, Vol. IV. 
2^p. 400, 403, and the Book of Esther and the Pro- 
2?7iecies of Daniel. These countries were conquered 
by Cyrus, and brought under the Persian yoke about 
555 years before Christ, and about 1,000 after the 
times of Saturn and Moses ; and only about 500 after 
the enslavement of the Helots. From the time of 
Cyrus' conquest to the time of Alexander, all Asia 
Minor was under the Persian yoke, and free from 
slavery, in any proper sense of the term, which was 
about 230 }^ears. 

As we have no evidence that slavery existed pre- 
vious to the time of Alexander the Great, 330 3. C, 
or that it was introduced by him, we are brought down 
with our inquiry to the overthrow of the Grecian 
power by Pompey the Great, 64 B. C. He conquered 
all the countries of Asia Minor, and brought them 
10*. 



114 

under the authority of the Roman people. If slavery 
was in Asia Minor at the time of the apostles, it was 
taken there by the Roman conquest, about 60 years 
before the christian era. Pompey conquered fifteen 
nations, among whom were Media, Armenia, Arabia, 
Judea, Albania, and Iberia, none of which were, or 
are, claimed to have been cursed with Roman slavery. 
If none of these nations were made slaveholding by 
the Roman power, what evidence have we that any 
were ? that slavery was introduced into any of them ? 
None at all. It is not likely that a policy would be 
pursued relative to one nation, different from that 
pursued to others. And this must have been the case, 
if Roman slavery was taken into Asia Minor by the 
Roman conquests. See Plutarch, Vol. III. p. 201. 
About the time Pompey conquered the nations of 
the East, Caesar was prosecuting a war in Europe, in 
which he is said to have conquered three hundred na- 
tions, — Plutarch, Vol. III. p. 22S. These nations 
were Germans, Franks, Gauls, Britons, &c. We have 
full histories of these nations, and know that Roman 
slavery never existed in any of them, feudal and Ger- 
man is all the slavery that ever had any existence in 
any of the countries conquered by Caesar, on this side 
of the Alps. Nov/ we enquire, what becomes of the 
assertion, that Roman slavery was co-extensive with 
the nations subjected to the Roman yoke, when not 
only scores but hundreds of these nations never ha4 
any Romaia slavery in them? What, we enquire, be- 
comes of this assumption, in view of this fact ? It 



• 



115 

must forever perish, in the eyes of all lovers of 
truth. 

The policy pursued by the Romans toward the 
nations they subdued, was to leave them in possession 
of their religion and laws, and make them tributaries 
to Rome. This made the Roman yoke easy while they 
felt they had the great strength of that power as an 
armor of defense. This made them reconciled to their 
new condition. In the case of Maxredoftia it was not 
only stipulated that they should enjoy their religion 
and laws, but that taxes should be only half what they 
had been before the capitulation. R,ome tolerated all 
religions but the true — the religion of Christ ; and her 
generals were ready to sacrifice to any god, but the 
living God. See Lempriere § Diet.. Macedonia. 

Pontus, which may be said to have included Cap- 
padocia and Galatia, was the "great country of Asia 
Minor. 

Mithridates, the great kin -r of Pontus, met the 
Romans with an army of 250,000 foot, 40,000 horse, 
and 100 chariots. After this power was brought un- 
der the Roman yoke, they were so far permitted to 
have their own laws, as to have a king. Lemprieres 
Diet., Pontus. And Mesopotamia, another of these 
conquered nations, was not reduced to even a Roman 
province until the time of Trajan, A. D. 110, or with- 
in a year or two of that time, Lempriere s Diet., 
Mesopotamia. What proof do these facts give that 
Roman slavery was introduced into Asia Minor hj 
the Roman conquest ? None at all ; and if it "was not 



116 

introduced by the Romans, it could not be there. And 
we have seen that Grecian slavery was not taken 
there by Alexander ; and that all the countries of 
Asia were free from slavery up to his time. Had the 
slavery of the Spartans been taken there, it would 
not have made one man master and another slave ; 
for Spartan slavery was not individual, but national ; 
the slaves belonged to the State ; and that kind of 
slavery did not constitute masters and slaves, but 
master and slaves ; all slaves having the same master, 
the State. 

The duty of servants is pointed out in Eph., Col., 
Tim., Titus, and 1 Peter. The duty of masters, in 
Eph. and Col. These two are the only places which 
speak of the duty of masters. In Timothy, believing 
masters are mentioned. But Timothy was bishop of 
Ephesus, so that the same people are instructed through 
the epistle to Timothy, which were by the epistle to 
the Ephesians. The epistle to Philemon, and that to 
the Colossians, were addressed to the same place. 
Philemon was a citizen of Colosse, so that we have 
but two places where masters are recognized as mem- 
bers of Apostolic churches. Ephesus was a city of 
Ionia. This country was settled by Greeks, princi- 
pally from Attica, and first became tributary to Ly- 
dia, then to Persia, then to the Macedonians under 
Alexander, and lastly to the Romans ; but history 
gives no account of slaves in Ionia. Colosse was a 
city of Phrygia. The Phrygians were of Thracian 
origin, and one of the oldest nations of Asia Minor. 



117 

We have no account of them ever owning slaves. The 
whole dispute is narrowed down to these two places ; 
and if there was no slavery in Ionia or Phrygia, 
then there was no slavery in the countries in which 
the churches were located, in which masters were re- 
cognized as members of the Apostolic church by the 
exhibition of their duties. 

j The epistle of Peter is addressed to the strangers 
scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia r 
and Bythinia. Who those strangers were we are not 
specifically informed, but the most probable conjec- 
ture is, that they were Jews which the persecution at 
Jerusalem under Herod had dispersed, recorded in 
the twelfth of Acts, and if so, they were not slave- 
holding, for there were no slaves in Judea. This docs 
not affect the question of the existence of slavery in 
Asia Minor ; but in the New Testament church * and 
it is plain that these strangers scattered throughout 
these countries were not citizens of them.. And as 
Peter was the apostle of the circumcision,, the infer- 
ence is fair, if not undeniable, that the persons ad- 
dressed were Jewish christians who had sought pro- 
tection and employment in these nations, and were 
hirelings or servants, and not masters of any kind. 
This appears to be the only conclusion we can fairly 
come to. 

1 In the epistle to Titus, the last place to be no- 
ticed, servants only are addressed. Titus was bishop 
of Crete, one of the largest islands in the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. This island was inhabited at a very 



118 

early day. Minos, a very wise legislator, framed a 
code of laws for it, 1400 years before the christian 
era. He wa3 a grandson of Saturn, and lived before 
slavery began to be. This king died thirty-five years 
before the Trojan war. These laws were long pre- 
served as a specimen of wisdom. We have no account 
of slavery in Crete, first or last. But if slavery was 
there, it would prove nothing in favor of slaveholders 
having been members of the New Testament church ; 
for the duties of masters, of any kind, make no part 
of the epistle, and the epistles of Ephesians and Co- 
lossians are the only parts of the New Testament 
which can be forced into this service. And we have 
seen that there is no evidence of the existence of 
slavery in either of those cities, or the countries of 
which they were a part, but much, very much, that 
slavery never had any existence in either of them ; 
and if it were not there, it could not be in these 
churches. 

But we have proof that slavery existed in Rome 
to a fearful extent, and that it also existed in Greece. 
Yet in the epistle to the Romans, the largest of all 
St. Paul's epistles, not one word is said on the sub- 
ject of the duties of servants and masters. The 
epistles to the Corinthians, which are longer than any 
of the epistles, except the epistle to the Romans, but 
not one word is said on the duties of masters and 
servants in them. If slavery was then, or is now, a 
subject of gospel regulation, why was it not regulated 
where it was ? For if slavery was in the church any- 



119 

where, it was in the church of Borne or Corinth. 
This cannot be denied ; and if it needed regulating 
anywhere, it needed it there ; and yet not one word 
is said on the subject of the duties of masters or 
servants. This is very strange, yea, surprising, if 
slaveholders and slaves were members of the New 
Testament church. But in Ephesus and Colosse, 
where we have not a particle of evidence that slavery 
existed, or ever had existed, and the best evidence 
that such a subject will admit of, that it had no exist- 
ence, we have the duties of servants and masters. 
We say the best evidence such a subject will admit of, 
that slavery had no existence there. 

It may be contended that hired servants lived in 
Rome and Corinth, and it w T as necessary to teach 
them and their employers their duty in those cities, 
as it was in Ephesus, or Colosse, or in any other place. 
This is certainly true, and yet it was not done. It is 
not for us to pretend to comprehend the ways of God 
so as to give the reason ; but in the fact that slavery 
was in those cities, and abounded, we have a sufficient 
reason. Had the duties of servants and masters been 
enjoined where slavery certainly was, it might have 
been contended, w T ith a great appearance of probabil- 
ity, that these servants were slaves, and the masters 
slaveholders ; and slaveholders and their advocates 
might have — nay, more, would have — perverted these 
impositions of the duties of innocent relations to the 
support of a crime which the legislation of Jehovah 
in the Old Testament classed with murder, and in the 



120 

teachings of the New classes with the most flagitious 
offences. But it was safe to point out the duties of 
these relations where slavery was not, but it was not 
safe to do so where it was. We see the use that has 
been made of the designation of those duties as it is ; 
and all must see that if they had been found in the 
epistles to the Romans and Corinthians that slave- 
holders and their advocates would have had means to 
sustain slavery they have not now. 

In addition to what has been adduced, we have 
the testimony of Gibbon, that slavery existed in the 
free States of the Roman Empire, He says: "But 
there still remained in the centre of every province,, 
and in every family, an unhappy condition of men 
who endured the weight without sharing the benefits 
of society. In the free States of antiquity, the do- 
mestic slaves were exposed to the wanton rigor of 
despotism. The perfect settlement of the Roman 
Empire was preceded by ages of violence and rapine. 
The slaves consisted, for the most part, of barbarian 
captives, taken in thousands by the chance of war, 
purchased at a vile price." — Vol. I. p. 27. 

The persons here mentioned who bore the weight, 
without enjoying any of the benefits of society, were 
the oppressed of the provinces ; they were not slaves ; 
for they were not only to be found in every province, 
but in every family ; and slavery had no existence in 
many of the provinces, if it had a being in any of 
them ; and if it did exist in them all, every family in 
every province of that vast empire was not rich 



121 

enough to own slaves, or even a slave ; so we see 
clearly that the oppressed of the provinces were not 
slaves. 

The oppressed of the free States of antiquity 
Were domestic slaves, which were principally captives 
taken in war, and brought by their captors, and sold 
at a vile price. The persons who conducted the wars 
of Rome were at first citizens. This was the case in 
the purer days of the Republic ; and these citizens 
were once all Romans. In the time of Servius Tullius 
I. the sixth king of Rome, B. C. 534, there were but 
83,000 citizens ; at the commencement of the social 
war, there were 463,000. Afterward, all the Italian 
States, except the Samnites and Lucanians, were 
taken into the bosom of Rome, and made citizens. 
u From the foot of the Alps to the extremity of Ca- 
labria, all the natives were born citizens ; and in the 
time of these emperors there were about six millions of 
citizens in the empire." — Gibbon, Vol. I. chap. ii. pp. 
21, 22. The conquered provinces, in after times, 
furnished soldiers, who were officered by citizens. 
These soldiers received pay in various ways, one of 
which was in land ; and the officers, who were Roman 
citizens, claimed the prisoners of war, and brought 
them to the free States of antiquity — Italy, and 
there enslaved them. The inhabitants of conquered 
provinces did not, except in rare instances, obtain 
citizenship, until after the time under consideration. 
See Gribbon, chap. i. and ii. And the countries of 
Asia Minor and Egypt, were the last of the kingdoms 
11 



122 

conquered by Rome, who were admitted to these 
favors. It was over 230 years before any Egyptian 
was permitted to have a place in the Senate of Rome. 

The free States of antiquity, of which Gibbon 
speaks, were not in Asia Minor, and in these States 
were the domestic slaves. He might have had his 
eye on the States of Greece, which were free in the 
palmy days of that country ; but this is not clear ; 
for the slavery of Sparta was not domestic slavery. 
It was governmental slavery. That of Athens might 
be so considered, but Roman Slavery was domestic to 
all intents and purposes. And this slavery existed in 
the free States of Italy, and not in the provinces. 
The inhabitants of these provinces had to bear the 
burdens imposed on them by Rome, while they could 
not enjoy the rights and privileges of Roman citizens; 
and in every house in the provinces such persons were 
found ; but the slaves were the property of the Roman 
citizens, and found where these citizens lived, in the 
free States of Italy. The countries of Asia Minor 
were not the "free States of Antiquity '," but among 
the last of the Roman conquests, and the last who 
were permitted to enjoy the proud distinction of 
Roman citizens (see Gibbon, Vol. I. p. 24), and prov- 
inces, where oppression was found in every family, 
but domestic slavery in none. 

What have we to oppose to this flood of evidence 
that there was no slavery in the provinces of Asia 
Minor? Some scattered declarations of Greek and 
Roman writers, who did not pretend to give the 



123 

histories of these countries with historical exactness, 
but their statements were incidental allusions. In 
this way some of these writers mentioned that the 
citizens of Tyre, at the time of Alexander the Great, 
were descendants of slaves, who had, some ages before, 
risen upon their masters and killed them, and from 
the time of that insurrection and massacre had re- 
mained masters of that city ; and that the severity of 
Alexander to the Tyrians was to punish them for the 
sins of their fathers. Thus proving that slavery 
existed in Asia before the time of Alexander. 

But this would not prove that there was slavery 
there four or five hundred years after, in the time of 
the Apostle. By no chance would it prove this. 

But there is no historical proof of this. Prideaux, 
Vol. II. p. 301, notices it, and calls it an old story, 
but does not inform us who was the story-teller. Plu- 
tarch makes no mention of it ; nor is any mention 
made of it in Rollin, or any historian we have seen, 
except this allusion of Prideaux, and he calls it an old 
story. The Tyrians were an ancient people, and built 
the first Tyre before slavery had any existence in the 
world. » 3 

It has been argued that, because great numbers 
of Roman slaves were obtained from Phrygia and 
Cappadocia, that these countries must have been 
slaveholding countries. And the Rev. Albert Barnes, 
in his work on slavery, says, " The very fact that 
Phrygia and Cappadocia were understood to be places 
from which slaves could be obtained for the capital, 



124 

would make it necessary to keep them for market/' 
p. 259. But what are the facts ? Julius Cse&ar took 
one million of prisoners from the three hundred na- 
tions he conquered, and the one thousand cities he 
took : these persons were slaves, because captives 
taken in wax were the principal source of Eoman 
slavery. Were the countries who furnished Rome 
this million of slaves,, slaveholding countries? By 
no means. And when we recollect that Phrygia 
and Cappadocia were engaged against the Romans 
in the Mithriadatic war, which I&sted forty years, — 
the longest war in which Rome was ever engaged, 
— and that Rome made slaves of captives taken 
in war, we have the true reason why the name of 
Cappadocia was almost synonymous with slavery. 
This country w T as almost depopulated by that war — 
a very large portion of her people were made captives, 
and taken to Rome for slaves. And this is not all. 
When they were offered their freedom by the Romans 
who overrun their country in this war, they refused 
independence, and preferred to have a king. This 
preference to be ruled, over-ruling themselves, well 
entitled them to the name of slaves, by Republican 
Rome; for this took place in the days of the repub- 
lic. Lempriere s Dictionary, Cappadocia. This fact 
satisfactorily accounts for the application of the term 
slave to the Cappaclocians; and also for the number 
of slaves that was brought from Phrygia and Cappa- 
docia. But the conclusions of Mr. Barnes are not 
authorized from the premises. His work, though 



125 

containing many excellent things, is defective — false 
to the cause of the slave and pure Christianity, in 
that he admit* that slaveholders were members of the 
New Testament church. He gives evidence of a want 
of examination of the subject. 

It is farther contended that slavery was common 
in all the nations of the earth, at the time of the 
Apostles ; but this is mere assumption. There is not 
a particle of proof to sustain any such a conclusion. 
The historical evidence we have adduced proves the 
very reverse. 

The case of Joseph in Egypt is cited in proof of 
the commonness of slavery at his time. But we have 
shown from the best authorities that slavery did not 
exist at all at that time, except in case of parents 
selling their children, who could not be held longer 
than the year of release, which was the fiftieth year. 
This fact refutes the argument, — no, disproves the 
assumption,— for it is not entitled to the name of ar- 
gument. Joseph was a minor, and at the disposal of 
his majors, as all minors now are, and, as far as we can 
learn, then were, subject to the control of their pa- 
rents and elder brethren. Elder brethren had more 
authority then than they have now ; this may account 
for the sale of Joseph. They might have presented 
his father as dead, and his elder brethren as his right- 
ful governors. This supposition agrees with the state 
of things at that early age, but no other can be recon- 
ciled to it. His bondage in Egypt was anything but 
Roman or American slavery. Potipher was an officer 
11* 



126 

in authority, and Joseph was put over all he had ;— 
was the steward of his house, — next in authority to 
Potipher. His servitude in the prison was for supposed 
crime, which supposition rested on the testimony of a 
perjured woman. What was his age when cast into 
prison we are not informed; but his freedom had 
something to do with his service in the house of Poti- 
pher, for it is not reasonable that so much should be 
entrusted to an involuntary slave. His involuntary 
servitude could not last long in Egypt, for no person 
could be born a slave there, as we have seen, and 
there was no class of slaves in Egypt, as we have 
seen in our previous investigations ; and the situation 
Joseph occupied in his master's house is satisfactory 
proof, we think, to any reflecting mind, that his invol- 
untary servitude had ended before he was charged 
with crime. 

The servitude of the Israelites has been adduced 
to prove the early existence of slavery ; but this 
claim is unworthy of a serious reply. The Israelitish 
servitude was national and not domestic, and had 
nothing of the nature of domestic slavery in it. This 
all must see at a glance. They retained their nation- 
ality through all their servitude, and the government 
of Egypt was the master who set task-masters over 
them. Such cases of oppression and servitude have 
been but too common amongst nations ; but slavery is 
a very different things it is making one man the prop- 
ex ty of another. This was Roman slavery ; that is 
American slavery ; this was not, nor is not, national 
oppression, or national servitude. 



127 

We have now presented, as fully as our limits will 
permit, the authorities on which we made the declara- 
tion, some years since, that there was no slavery in 
the countries in which the churches were located to 
whom were addressed the epistles in which the duties 
of masters and servants are specified. We were sat- 
isfied then that they justified the declaration — we are 
satisfied yet that we were then right. We have seen 
a few attempts to prove the reverse, but they have 
been meagre failures, evidencing a want of acquaint- 
ance with the subject. If we fail to convince some 
of the justness of our conclusions, we think they will 
be convinced of two things : 1. That we have not 
jumped to our conclusions without examining the sub- 
ject. 2. That we have rendered the anti-slavery 
cause important service by our investigation. But we 
do not see how any impartial mind can come to a 
different conclusion from ours. 

We consider the argument of the first and second 
parts complete without this; but it is well to "make 
assurance doubly sure." We have no fears that either 
will ever be answered ; indeed, we do not expect an 
answer will ever be attempted ; and we felt so confi- 
dent that the argument was conclusive, that we looked 
upon this third part as unnecessary. We do not con- 
sider that the argument of the Old or New Testament 
against slavery needs this inquiry to establish them ; 
but still they derive confirmation from it. This, we 
think, all will admit. 

This paper has cost us immense labor; and since 



128 

we first expressed the opinion, that there was no 
slavery in Asia Minor, to the present time, we 
have not been in circumstances to give to the world 
the result of these labors. We spent some time in 
preparing a work on slavery, in which we intended to 
give these proofs, but were compelled by ill health 
to abandon the work, and since we have recovered our 
health, we have not had the means or time to print until 
the present.. We think the reasons of the delay called 
for. We have conversed with quite a number of good, 
and very intelligent, anti-slavery men, on the subject 
of this paper, who have expressed fears that we could 
not sustain the declaration that there was no slavery 
in Asia Minor,, by any historical evidence ; but they 
all gave evidence that they had never carefully exam- 
ined the subject. We have been surprised at the 
almost universal ignorance on the. subject of the com- 
mencement of slavery. We have not met with a 
single person who had examined with any care the 
position of the early nations on the subject. We 
have long thought such an examination called for, and 
should have been glad if some person of more ability 
and leisure had undertaken it. But we have done the 
best we could in our circumstances; and we are not 
without hope that our humble effort will be the means 
of calling the attention, of those who have the ability 
and means to make what we have here presented still 
more conclusive. 



129 

DEFINITION OF SLAVERY. 
BY JUDGE S. C. STEPHENS, OF INDIANA. 

The question then is, what is a slave? 

1. An American slave is a human being who is, 
by wicked and unlawful force, against his will, reduced 
to a state of civil death, and is considered, held, and 
treated as property, as merchandize, and as a brute 
beast. 

2. A human being who, by like sinful and unlaw- 
ful means, and against his will, is deprived of a name, 
and deprived of the right of belonging to any nation, 
tribe, kindred, family, or people. 

3. A human being who, by the like sinful and 
unlawful means, and against his will, is rendered 
incapable of having a husband, a wife, a father, a 
mother, a child, a brother, a sister, or any other rela- 
tion more than a brute has. 

4. A human being that, by a like sinful and un- 
lawful means, and against his will, is owned by another 
human being, as absolute property, as he owns a horse 
or a hog. And, if a father, he does not own his 
child, is not as a father of a child, and has no family 
name that his child can bear, any more than the father 
of a colt or a pig. And, if a mother, her child is not 
hers ; it belongs to her owner, and he takes it and 
disposes of it, when and how he pleases. And as 
soon as she ceases to feed it at her breast, she has no 
more right or control over it. She is precisely hehl, 



130 

viewed and treated as the mother of a colt or calf is, 
so far as her child is concerned. 

5. A human being who, by like unlawful and sin- 
ful force, and against his will, is rendered incapable 
of holding, owning, or possessing, as owner, any spe- 
cies of property whatever. His whole time, his whole 
services, and all the proceeds of his labor belongs to 
his owner. If anything is given to him, it belongs to 
his owner. Not a moment of time belongs to him ; 
his whole time belongs to his owner. He cannot have 
a will or a judgment to exercise about anything ; his 
will and his judgment are in the exclusive control of 
his owner. He has no heirs, nor is he heir to any 
person, and, therefore, nothing can descend to him. 
He cannot make a will, and is, therefore, in all things 
reduced to a brute beast. 

6. A human being who, by unlawful and sinful 
means, is rendered incapable of making a contract, 
cannot even make a marriage contract — nor can he 
perform a contract ; and, therefore, cannot be bound 
by a contract, any more than a horse can make or be 
bound by contract. 

7. In law and among men there are two species 
of persons, that is, real persons — human beings — and 
artificial persons, corporate bodies. Persons, and 
persons only, can contract and be contracted with, 
sue and be sued, in law and in chancery. A slave 
can neither contract nor be contracted with, sue nor 
be sued. This most clearly shows that they are re- 
duced to brute beasts, and are not persons. 



131 

8. A human being who, by like unlawful and sin- 
ful means, and against his will, is stript of all right 
of self-defence, and who cannot appeal to any tribu- 
nal, or person in church or state, for the redress of 
any grievance or abuse whatever. Any free person 
may whip, wound, beat, bruise, maim or mangle them 
at pleasure, and when and where they please, and the 
slave has no redress whatever. He dare not resist 
the abuse, for it is death by slave laws for a slave to 
resist a free person. 

The owner of a slave that is thus whipped, bruised, 
maimed, abused or mangled, may sue the person that 
did it for injury done to his property, as he could do 
if it had been a horse thus beaten ; but the slave has 
no redress any more than a horse would have redress. 

9. A human being who, by like unlawful and sin- 
ful means, and against his will, can be seized and sold 
by execution, descends to heirs, may be mortgaged, 
may be disposed of by will, may be inventoried and 
sold by administrators or executors. 

10. A human being who, by sinful and unlawful 
means, and against his will, is reduced to his subjec- 
tion, by which he can know no law or rule of conduct 
but the arbitrary will, whim and caprice of his owner, 
and is bound to labor to the extent of his power for 
his owner while life lasts. He does not own his own 
life, but is at all times subject to be killed by his mas- 
ter, and can receive no pay or reward for his services. 

11. A human being who, by like unlawful and sin- 
ful means, is kept as ignorant as a beast, so that he 



132 

may not know his own rights. And is whipped and 
abused at the will of his owner, is fed, or starw, 
clothed or goes naked, at the will of the owner. 

12. A human being who, by like unlawful and 
sinful means, and against his will, is compelled, by the 
force of his ignorance and nature, to live in the sin 
of fornication, lewdness, licentiousness, incest, and 
libertinism. The intercourse upon the large planta- 
tions is as the intercourse of beasts. They have no 
knowledge of brother or sister, or father or mother, 
the children of all being brought up together in the 
huts called nurseries, separate and apart from the 
laborers, without any information who mother, or 
father, or sister, or brother is. 

13. Slavery is hereditary, and descends like a 
beast in the female line, and not like a human being 
in the male line, forever. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE BEMEDY; 

ADDRESSED TO THE ANTI-SLAVERY MEMBERS OP 
SLAVEHOLDING CHURCHES. 

Slavery is acknowledged by a very large portion 
o£ the world to be an evil ; and by very many to be 
an evil in the sense of sin. No one thinks it right in 
his own case. No justification is offered for it only 
in its application to second or third persons. We 
have never known an exception to this remark. The 
very instincts of our nature revolt at its application 
to us, — our own sense of individual and personal 
rights tell us we ought to be free. This instinctive 
sense of our right to freedom has resisted despotism 
in all ages, and will continue so to do, until the shout 
of a world's jubilee shall go up to God in Heaven. 
No other subject is exciting the civilized world to the 
same extent at this time, and the church in this nation 
is convulsed, as with the throes of an earthquake ; 
and this is also the case with the nation itself. Every 
effort to allay excitement fans the flame, and the labor 
of learned ministers to prove slavery right, from the 
Bible, is leading this nation to reject the Bible as a 
12 



134 

revelation from God ; as the self-evident truth that I 
have a right to be free, outweighs any evidence I can 
have that such a Bible is a revelation from the God 
of Justice. And just as these ministers succeed in 
convincing men that the Book of God justifies slavery 
will they be successful in making infidels. Humanity 
never has been, nor never can be, reconciled to slavery; 
and the world's peace never will be obtained until 
this evil is banished from the earth. 

But what will give to this distracted nation, this 
agitated world, the convulsed church, the longed for 
tranquillity ? This is an inquiry of immense moment ; 
but not of insuperable difficulty. The remedy is with 
the professing church of God, and nowhere else. The 
church is the salt of the earth, and the light of the 
world; it is Heaven's appointed instrumentality to 
banish sin from the world. It is the only salt, the 
only light, the one sun of the earth's hope ; God has 
given no other ; it is this, or none ! 

The Bible is the text which contains the mind of 
Jehovah. The practice of the church is the comment 
on that text, and the only comment. The church is 
God's appointed commentator — the light of the world. 
"What it condemns the world will hold in doubt ; what 
it approves, the world will practice complacently. We 
have demonstrable evidence of the correctness of this 
position in the practice of this nation on the subject 
of slavery, and polygamy, and concubinage. If we go 
to the Bible to know the mind of the Deity in relation 
to these two evils, we will find ten times the difficulty 



135 

to make out a case of condemnation against the latter 
practices, than we will against the former. Men who 
are held up as the saints of the Old Testament had 
more than one wife at the same time, and also concu- 
bines ; and though the New Testament plainly teaches 
the doctrine of one wife, it is sparing of its condem- 
nation of polygamy, except as the one wife doctrine 
makes it adultery, and condemns it as such. But this 
condemnation is inferential. This is not the case with 
slavery. Not an Old Testament saint ever held a 
slave, as we have seen in our first number, and both 
Old and New Testament condemn slavery in the most 
direct and positive manner, classing it with murder in 
the death penalty of the law ; and its practisers with 
murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, in 
the gospel. These facts are fully proved in the first 
and second parts. 

Now, for the practice of the church, and the effect 
of that practice on the public mind or conscience* 
Not a church of any denomination will give member- 
ship to a polygamist, except the Mormons ; and all, 
but a few small and uninfluential christian sects, give 
membership to slaveholders. The effect is,, a polyga- 
mist could not be raised to the office of a constable 
in any portion of the country we have any knowledge 
of. A slaveholder can be raised to the highest office 
in the nation. A horse thief, or a sheep thief, can 
hold no place in any church of this nation ; nor any 
office dependent on the suffrage of the people. Man 
thieves can be members of all the large and popular 



136 

churches of this land, and hold any office in the State 
of national government. We see what the church 
approves, the State honors; and what the church 
condemns, the State frowns upon. The State forms 
its notions of right and wrong, of reputable or dis- 
reputable, from the standard of the church. Nor can 
ijt fee otherwise,, since the church is the divinely author- 
ized expounder of God's law. " Go ye, therefore, 
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; 
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have 
commanded you ; and lo ! I am with you alway, even 
to the end of the world." Matthew xxviii. 19, 20. 
Here is the appointment of the church to teach the 
commandments of God, and this commission extends 
to the end of the world. The church is God's ap- 
pointed agent to teach his law to the end of the 
world ; and if the church be> unfaithful, the nations 
must be without his law. They may indeed wait for 
it, but must wait until the church does its duty. 
There is not a practice which the church refuses to 
fellowship that the State honors. Some may be suf- 
fered — none can be honored. 

If no church in this nation, or in this world, would 
admit a slaveholder to fellowship, slavery would soon 
be driven from Christendom. Humanity is against it, 
the instincts of our nature are against it. Our self- 
evident convictions are against it ; and if our religious 
teachings were against it, our consciences would also 
condemn it, and our hope of life hereafter would bind 



13T 

us to its overthrow, and it would have to die soon, as 
it would be impossible for it to live through all these 
opposing elements. The remedy is with the church, 
and nowhere else but there. The church must be 
brought to exclude all slaveholders from her fellow- 
ship. This done, and slavery must die. But as long 
a3 the church endorses the religious character of 
slaveholders, slavery may live ; for those whom God's 
appointed expounders of his law pronounce fit for 
heaven, will be permitted to live honored on earth, 
by all who have any regard for that law. And the 
history of the world shows one fact : a majority of 
all nations have been under the influence of the reli- 
gion taught in those nations, whether Pagan, Mahom- 
medan, Jewish, or Christian ; hence what the religion 
of a State condemns, a majority of that State will 
condemn, and what it approves a majority will ap- 
prove, as the majority of the State is with the religion 
of the State, if it have any. And where the majority 
make the laws> as they do in this nation, they will 
not make laws against, but in unison with their con- 
sciences ; hence if the religion of this land condemned 
slavery, it would form a conscience against the evil 
that would soon force up State action for its overthrow. 
When men's hope of life hereafter is involved, they 
will act. Motives drawn from the eternal world have 
power to hold the heart, but we have no confidence in 
anything else. \ 

God's church is composed of his spiritual children, 
and its collective obligation is but the aggregate of 
12* 



138 

their individual obligations, and what God requires of 
his church, he requires of each member, so far as 
individual action can meet that requirement. To 
deny this position is to affirm that the whole is more- 
than all the parts of that whole, which is impossible. 
And here we have the starting point of church reform ; 
the reform of its members, one by one, until the 
whole is reformed. As the members of the church 
see duty, they must do it in the fear of the Lord ; 
otherwise men are saved in the neglect of duty, which 
is- opposed to the plainest teachings of God's Holy 
Word. If slavery must be turned out of the fellow- 
ship of the church to secure the State action needful 
for its abolition, the church must refuse to fellowship 
slaveholders ; and what the church must do, the indi- 
vidual members must- do; else the church's duty is 
not the aggregate of the duty of its members, and 
associations are under obligations that no individual 
or individuate are accountable for, — obligations which 
oblige no one ; this cannot be. The beginning is 
with individuals. Those who see that slavery is sin- 
ful must refuse fellowship to slaveholders, and labor 
to give others the light they have to lead them to the 
same course of action, and thus progress until the 
whole is brought to refuse to fellowship with slavehold- 
ers. When this is accomplished, the work is done ^ 
there is no power on earth that can maintain slavery 
against the moral power of the church. 

We look on this great result with peculiar interest, 
«,nd anti-slavery christians would do anything in their 



139 

power to produce it. But the beginning is as impor- 
tant as the end, for the end cannot be readied with- 
out the beginning : and this is not all ; each step in 
the progress from the beginning to the end is of equal 
importance. Some one person must take the first 
step — make the beginning — or slavery never can be 
abolished ; and he who refuses to take that step, when 
he sees his duty, is responsible for all the consequences 
of the continued enslavement of three millions, for 
he refuses to begin the only thing that can free them, 
and the thing which cannot fail of this end. Terri- 
ble thought ! to appear before the final Judge with 
the blood of these millions on one's soul ! Far, far 
better would it be never to have been born, or to be 
yoked with a millstone and cast into the midst of the 
sea. 

But the first step has been taken ; this mighty 
obligation has been discharged ; and yet the work is 
not done — progress must be made or the end can 
never be reached ; and those who see their duty to 
refuse fellowship to slaveholders, and do not do it, 
refuse to do what is indispensably necessary to accom- 
plish this great object, and are in as fearful a condi- 
tion as those persons we have just described. The 
guilt of the whole system rests upon their souls ; for 
they refuse to do what must be done to abolish the 
entire system. We will illustrate the subject: A 
large mass is to be raised by a succession of individ- 
ual actors. The first actor can raise it one inch, 
which will enable the second to get hold of it with 



140 

his machinery and raise it another inch, which will 
enable a third to get hold of it and raise it a third 
inch, and this will enable a fourth to get hold and 
raise it a fourth inch ; and in this relation one hun- 
dred or one thousand are placed. If the first actor 
refuse to do his part, none above him can do anything 
for the lifting of this weight ; and if any one refuses 
to lift the weight his inch, all above him can do noth- 
ing, and progress stops with the refuser, be him first, 
last, or middle man ; and the whole responsibility of 
the failure rests with him. He refused to lift the 
whole mass, when it was in his hands to be raised, 
and when if he did not do it no other could. Let 
this great weight represent slavery, that is, crushing 
the hearts and hopes of the millions of American 
slaves — yea, more, their flesh to pomace, and their 
bones to powder ; and the elevators of it, the anti- 
slavery christians of this land. Each one has his 
inch to raise, or hair's breadth, if you please, but that 
much must be raised by him, if he would be guiltless 
before God. He who refuses to do his part consents 
to let these millions be crushed, and must meet the 
awful responsibility of that consent in the Judgment 
Day. And though unlike the elevators in the illus- 
tration, the failure of one to do his duty may not 
defeat the end, because some other person may sup- 
ply his lack of service, and the end be reached ; the 
responsibility is the same ; for refusing to do what 
would forward the up-lifting of the weight, is to con- 
sent to let it rest so far as the refuser is concerned. 



141 

Anti-slavery christians of this day have fearful re- 
sponsibilities resting on them. I pray the Father of 
Spirits that they may be the men for the hour ; but 
if they are not, the work will not be long stopped — 
if they hold their peace the stones will cry out. 
Providence has, I am confident, prepared the way for 
a development in the right directions, on this subject, 
and if we should count ourselves unworthy, he will 
turn to others ; it will go on. 

» If it be the duty of christians to refuse fellowship 
to slaveholders, they must place themselves where 
they can perform their duty ; and this brings us to 
consider their duty in relation to slaveholding churches. 
If they must not fellowship slaveholders, they must 
not be members of slaveholding churches ; for this 
would be to fellowship these persons ; for church fel- 
lowship is fellowship with the members who make the 
church. Let us examine this subject in the fear of 
God and the light of his Holy Word. 

The first text of scripture I will notice, is Matt, 
xviii, 15 to 17. In this place we have a plainly com- 
manded duty to perform to impenitent trespassing 
brethren ; they are to be to christians as heathen 
men and as publicans. This duty is imposed not on 
the church collectively, but on its members individu- 
ally. "If thy brother trespass against thee" in the 
singular, "let him be to thee as a heathen man," &c, 
again in the singular. 

Now, let us inquire what connection heathen men. 
and publicans sustained to the worshipers of the true 



142 

God, in the days of our Savior's incarnation, and 
what connection have they at this day ? Were they 
permitted to participate in the holy worship of the 
Almighty ? No, verily. Are they now permitted to 
sit at the holy communion to be members of churches, 
Church sessions, Presbyteries, Conferences, Synods, 
Conventions or General Assemblies ? These persons 
had no sort of religious connection with the worship- 
ers of the true God in the days of the Savior, than 
which nothing is susceptible of clearer proof. I do 
not suppose that any will have the hardihood to deny 
the correctness of this- position. And as the worship- 
ers of Jehovah had no religious connection whatever, 
were not allowed to have any with heathen men, 
neither are christians to have any with impenitent 
trespassing brethren. The direction of the Savior 
in this place means that we dissolve all religious con- 
nection with these impenitent trespassing brethren, 
and it means nothing else. 

But it may be plead that these directions apply to 
personal offenses, and not to offenses which are not 
personal to us. Be it so^ for the sake of the objector, 
for the present. But in case the church refuse to 
disown the impenitent trespasser when he refuses to 
hear the church, what shall the injured party do in 
that case ? Shall he obey the church, and fellowship 
him as a beloved brother, or obey Christ and have no 
fellowship with him? If he obey Christ -he can have 
no fellowship with that church, for to do so would be 
to fellowship the trespasser, who is a part of it which 



143 

the Savior positively forbid. And we are compelled 
to withdraw from the fellowship of such a church, or 
disobey him ; for when we fellowship the church we 
fellowship its members — they are the church, and we 
fellowship this trespasser when we fellowship it. Here 
is ground for secession, where plainly commanded duty 
can be discharged in no other way. Mark this. 

" But now I have written unto you not to keep 
company — if any man that is called a brother, be a 
fornicator or covetous, or an idolator, or railer, or 
drunkard, or extortioner — with such an one, no not to 
eat." 1 Cor. v, 11. It may be remarked on this 
text, that any one of the offenses named brings the 
offender within the intent and meaning of the prohi- 
bition ; covetousness and extortion are offenses named, 
and both these are included in slaveholding ; for if to 
compel a human being to labor from the cradle to the 
grave, without compensation, except such sustenance 
as will qualify him for labor, is not extortion, then 
the crime never did exist, nor never can. And slavery 
is more than covetousness (a desire to obtain that 
which of right belongs to another), it is a taking of 
that which is rightfully another's, — the high crime of 
theft or robbery. These crimes form the essential 
attributes of slavery, if not its essence, and include 
it in the prohibition of the text — with those who 
practice these crimes we must not eat. 

But what are we not. to eat with them? A com- 
mon meal, or the feast of unleavened bread, or love- 
feast ? It must be one of these, as I know of no 



144 

other kind of eating allowed to christians. If we 
say we are not to eat ordinary food with these char- 
acters, and that we may eat the Lord's supper with 
them, we require more care as to whom we would sit 
at table with in a public inn than at the communion 
of the body and blood of Christ. And this is not all. 
We would have to make inquiry when we might go to 
eat with others, to see if any such persons were at 
the table ; and if there should be, we should not dare 
to eat, if the offender was a professor of Christianity. 
And if we apply the prohibition to the love-feast of 
the primitive church, we will make the institution of 
man more sacred than the holy ordinances of Christ. 
That the prohibition forbids us to eat the Lord's 
supper with these characters is plain, from the 8th 
verse : " Therefore let us keep the feast, not with 
old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and 
wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincer- 
ity and truth." Here the Apostle gives directions 
how to keep "the feast of unleavened bread" — the 
feast kept with "unleavened bread" not the eating 
of a common meal, or the primitive love-feast ; for we 
know of no feasts kept with unleavened bread but the 
passover of the la.w, and the eucharist of the gospel. 
And the Apostle was not regulating Jewish rites, but 
gospel ordinances ; hence he spoke of the supper of 
the Lord, and prohibited in the most positive manner 
eating it with certain characters, among whom slave- 
holders are undeniably included. From this conclu- 
sion it is impossible to escape. 



145 

When the church receives a person to membership, 
she says by that act that in her judgment that person 
is a christian ; and her judgment is of great import- 
ance, for she is not only to judge the world, but also 
angels ; see 1 Cor. vi, 2, 3. She is God's appointed 
judge in the case, and this judgment of character 
must have great influence for good or evil- If it be 
according to truth, the world will have a safe example ; 
but if not, the action of the church will be fearfully 
destructive, for she will have raised a false standard. 
The reception of members into a church is the highest 
endorsement of christian character that can be given 
by that church, for she says by that act these persons 
are christians ; and to receive the communion of the 
body and blood of Christ with them, is to acknowl- 
edge them christians, and to say to the world these 
are the followers of the Saviour, and to be what 
they are is to be a christian. Such a testimony 
by the church of the character of slaveholders is 
fearful in the extreme. To hold up to a sinning 
world those who practise the sum of all villainies, as 
the salt of the earth and the light of the world, is to 
put darkness for light, and death for life, by the only 
agent the world has to look to for the instructions of 
life. And he who communes with the slaveholder 
says, by that act, to the unsaved, that he regards him 
as a christian ; for he communes with him in the fel- 
lowship of saints, and gives the whole weight of his 
influence to mislead the unsaved. He may indeed 
lessen the force of this testimony on the few who may 
13 



146 

know or learn from him that he does not regard 
slaveholders as christians ; but on the many, his testi- 
mony rests with unbroken force. We see from these 
considerations the reason, yea more, the necessity of 
the prohibition under consideration. 

Some take the ground that we need have no con- 
cern with whom we commune — if we be right ourselves 
we have no farther responsibility. We may take the 
thief, the idolater, the slaveholder, all clotted with 
human gore, by the arm, and go to the holy sacrament 
of the Lord's supper, and there, in the nearest visible 
approach we can make to Christ on earth, hold the 
closest communion with these characters that can be 
held out of heaven, and acknowledge them before 
men, angels, devils, and Jesus, our Redeemer, our 
brethren in Christ. This is a monstrous position. I 
once knew a minister of high standing in a slave- 
holding church, who said he would go to communion 
with the devil. Those whc take this position cite the 
example of Christ administering the communion to 
Judas, and the other disciples eating with him. But 
they mistake the fact. Judas did not partake of the 
sacrament with the Savior, or any other person. By 
comparing Luke xxii, from 14 to 21, with John xii, 
from 26 to 31, it will be seen that the supper of the 
Lord was instituted after the eating of the passover, 
and that Judas left the Savior and his disciples while 
they were eating the passover. The sop which the 
Savior gave him was a part of the passover, not a 
part of the bread and wine of the supper, which was 



14*7 

not instituted until after the passover was eaten ; and 
Judas went out immediately after receiving the sop, 
while the passover was being eaten, and could not be 
in when the supper was instituted, after it was eaten. 
The history of the last passover and the institution 
of the supper is given by the other evangelists, but 
none of them distinguish as to time, except Luke, 
He represents them in connection, as do the others ; 
but the supper coming after the passover, which the 
others do not give. And the fact that John gives, 
that Judas went out to sell the Savior while the pass- 
over was being eaten, proves that he was not there 
after it was finished, when the sacrament of the sup- 
per was instituted, and could take no part in it. If I 
have not misapplied 1 Cor. v, 11, and I am confident 

1 have not, christians are positively forbidden to eat 
the Lord's supper with any but those persons who 
give scriptural evidence of piety. And to refuse to 
commune with a man is to refuse to hold church 
fellowship with him — to acknowledge him to be a 
christian. 

i " Wherefore come from among them, and be ye 
Beparate, saith the Lord ; and touch not the unclean 
thing [person], and I will receive you. 

" And I will be a father unto you, and ye shall 
be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." 

2 Cor. vi, 17, 18. 

The persons from whom we are to come out and 
be separated from, so as not to touch, are unbelievers 
of every kind and degree (see verse 14), from the 



148 

decent neglectors of salvation, to the devotee of an 
idol's temple ; with none of these are we to be yoked 
together in the gospel harness. Separation from 
them, in the sense of the. text, is not in the world, or 
in the ordinary business of life, but in the gospel 
yoke — in the service of God — the duties of religion — 
the fellowship of saints. 

But suppose the church take these persons into 
her bosom : What shall the good and the true do ? 
Shall they suffer themselves to be yoked with these 
unbelievers, in the service of God — the work of the 
world's salvation — and disobey God ? Or shall they 
come out from among them, and be separated from 
them, as God commands ? To remain in church fel- 
lowship with such persons is plainly to disobey the 
Almighty, and to forfeit our right to claim him as our 
Father — to give up our privilege of being his sons 
and daughters, than which nothing can be plainer. 
These are too much to give for the privilege of be- 
longing to a corrupt church ; yet many are in a fair 
way to give them all. 

"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful 
works of darkness, but rather reprove them ;" Eph. 
v, 11. Two things are presented, darkness ivorks and 
unfruitful works. The mysteries of heathen worship 
were performed in the night, under the cover of dark- 
ness, and these the Apostle had a direct allusion 
to ; and these works of darkness were also unfruitful. 
There are many associations in this our day, which 
secretly meet in the night, and clearly come under 



149 

the description of the text. Whatever shuts out the 
light of investigation is emphatically a dark work. 
And this is not only true of societies professedly se- 
cret, but it is also true of slavery, which shuts the 
mouths of the slaves, who only can testify to its 
bloody workings. But the fellowship forbidden is 
with the workers of these works — we perform wQrks, 
we fellowship workers. We are not to fellowship the 
workers of these dark works. But suppose our 
church take these characters to her bosom ? What 
shall the faithful do in such a case ? Shall they dis- 
obey God, and fellowship these darkness workers, or 
shall they obey him and have no fellowship with them ? 
If they do they will have to leave that church. It is 
plain that Freemasonry, Odd Fellowship, and other 
kindred associations, work in the dark under the cover 
of secrecy ; and this is also true of slavery, and they 
are unfruitful, especially slavery ; it is productive of 
less good and more evil than any other system or 
practice on earth, except war. How then can we 
hold fellowship with slaveholders without disobeying 
this command ? In no wise can we do it. And to 
remain in a slaveholding church is to disobey this 
command. 

"Now we command you, brethren, in the name 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves 
from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not 
after the tradition he received from us." 2 Thess. 
iii, C. Here we are commanded in the most solemn 
manner to withdraiv from every disorderly brother. 
13* 



150 

In 1 Cor. v. 7, that church was commanded to purge 
out (put away from among them) the evil doer — here 
to withdraw from him. This command is either given 
to the church as a whole, or to its members as indi- 
viduals. The whole church is composed of all its 
parts, and what the whole is required to do all the 
parts are required to do ; and as the church is com- 
posed of its members, we find the duty of the mem- 
bers in the duty of the church, and vice versa. If 
the whole church was required to withdraw, every 
member was required to withdraw from the disorderly 
brother ; and because every member was required to 
withdraw, the whole church was required so to do, for 
all the members were the whole church. So that if 
the command was given to the church, the duty rested 
on the individual members. And if the command 
was given to the individual members, it rested on 
them ; so that in either case they are called to act. 

But suppose a majority refuse to obey God, shall 
that justify the minority in doing the same thing ? 
Shall the refusal of one man to do his duty exoner- 
ate another from doing his 1 Surely not. If a church 
refuse to obey this command, and' keep in fellowship 
confessedly disorderly persons, what shall the minority 
do ? What 1 1 Shall they disobey it also, while the 
declaration is sounding in their ears, " to obey is 
better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of 
rams, for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and 
stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry/' Surely 
not ! Here is another case where the good and the 



151 

true might be compelled to secede from a corrupt 
church, and we will show presently that this case 
exists. 

" And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, 
Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers 
of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues ;" 
Rev. xviii, 4. This is spoken of mystic Babylon, and 
beyond all doubt applies to some corrupt religious as- 
sociation. All Protestant commentators, so far as we 
know, apply this to the fallen church of Rome. T'hey- 
make her mystic Babylon. 

General charges are brought against Babylon, and 
specifications given to sustain these charges ; so we 
have the most exact information as to the crimes of 
this fallen church. She is charged with fornication — 
with being the habitation of devils, the hold of every 
foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful 
bird ; " her sins " have " reached into heaven.'"' Those 
charges are truly awful ; it would be thought mon- 
strous to say these things of the churches of this na- 
tion ; but when we come to the specifications which 
make up these charges, we may see that many of the 
churches of our land are verily guilty. What were 
the sins which fixed on her these awful charges ? Her 
" merchandise of gold and silver and precious stones, 
and of pearls and fine linen, and purple and silk and 
scarlet, and tliyine ivood and all manner of vessels of 
most precious wood, and of brass and iron, and mar- 
ble, and cinnamon and odors, and ointments, and 
frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and 



152 

wheat and beasts, and sheep, and horses and chariots ; 
slaves and souls of men.'" Here is the sum. of Baby- 
lon's iniquity, specifically given. All these specifica- 
tions, except the last, is but an exhibition of luxury 
and wine bibbling in which the popular churches of 
this our land would gain nothing by comparison. We 
have only to open our eyes to be convinced of this. 
And the last specification — trading in bodies and 
souls of men, for the Greek is somaton — bodies, is 
practiced in the slavebokling churches of this land. 
They have no advantage here ; I wish it distinctly 
understood that the original is somaton — bodies, the 
word is never rendered slaves. Trading in the bodies 
and souls of men 7 is slave-trading to all intents and 
purposes, for slaves are men — have bodies- and son fa; 
they are composed of bodies and souls, and to trade 
in them is to trade in what they are — to trade in 
THEM — in their bodies and souls.. 

But what are we to understand by churches 
trading in any kind of merchandising ? The mem- 
bers are the church ; what they do the church does. 
This is especially true when the whole church permits, 
allows or sanctions, what they do. The members of 
Babylon, the great, traded in the bodies and souls of 
men, and the highest authorities of that church 
allowed those who did so to retain their membership 
as good and acceptable brethren. This tells the whole 
tale. And is not this the case in the slaveholding 
churches of this highly favored nation? It is ! It 
is!! The members of these churches trade in the 



153 

bodies and the souls of men — have at least two hun- 
dred millions of dollars invested in bodies and souls 
for whom Christ died, many of whom " are the mem- 
bers of his body, of his flesh, and of his. bones," 
Eph. v, 30, " heirs to a crown of glory which fadeth 
not away." These are sold by members of churches 
in this land, with " beasts and sheep, and horses and 
chariots" — yea, more, with hogs — an article that 
Babylon did not trade in. Babylon did no more. 
Hell can ask no more. In this main particular Baby- 
lon is fully equaled, if not excelled, by the slavehold- 
ing churches of America, and in none of the others 
do they excel the mother of Harlots. I shudder at 
this conclusion, but truth compels it. 

But it is important to our inquiry to know if the 
slavery of Babylon differed from American slavery ; 
and if it did, was it more or less sinful ? Mr. "Wesley 
said that American slavery was the "vilest that ever 
saw the sun." He is good authority with Methodists. 
But facts are authority with all. The period of Bab- 
ylon's trading in slaves must be from about A. D. 
1000 to A. D. 1300, or from 1521 to the present 
time, as these are the only periods the members of 
the church were engaged to any considerable extent 
in slavery. The slavery of the first period was the 
slavery of the church of Rome and the Greek church. 
That of the second of the whole church, or Roman 
and Protestant churches with the Greek church. The 
slavery of the first period differs from our slavery in 
many important particulars, and the difference is all 



154 

against us. Then slaves could only be sold "with the 
soil ; the soil and the slaves could not be separated ; 
and this is now the case in portions of the Greek 
church; where the slave was born he laid himself 
down in death. Under that system families could 
never be broken up. Husbands and wives, parents 
and children, could live and die together ; they could 
lighten each others' burdens by tender sympathies — 
by interchanges of love. The wife had a husband's 
bosom to fly to in the hour of distress ; the husband, 
in his afflictions, a wife's heart to feel for him, and 
almost to relieve his burdened heart by going into it 
with hers ; a son, a father's counsel to guide him ; a 
daughter, a mother's tenderness to care for her, and 
when heart-broken or afflicted, a mother's ear to listen 
to the tale of sorrow — a mother's bosom to dry her 
tears. But none of these sweets mingle in the cup 
of American slavery. Here the demon hand of op- 
pression seizes the tender web into which is woven all 
the sympathy and love of our social natures, and tears 
it in pieces — separates husbands and wives, parents 
and children, prostrates all that can impart any joy to 
life, leaves its victim nothing but existence and its 
sorrows. Then masters might whip their slaves, but 
they dare not employ another to do it. Now the 
master may employ as many unfeeling wretches as 
he may choose, and by hired hands whip the slave to 
death. Worse — compel the son to apply the gory 
lash to the back of the father — the husband to that 
of his wife. Then slaves were admitted as parties at 



155 

law ; they could implead their own masters ; then law 
regulated slavery, and the slave could appeal to it for 
redress in his own person. Now the slave cannot be 
a party in any civil suit at law, whatever, — now the 
avarice, cupidity and lust of the master governs 
slavery, and from these the slave has no appeal. 
Then slaves were allowed their oaths against their 
masters — now denied them against any white person. 
Then the chastity of female slaves was protected by 
law ; if a master offered an insult to the virtue of his 
female slave, she obtained her freedom by making 
oath to that fact — now, if she do not yield to the 
criminal desires of her master, she may be whipped, 
even unto death, if no white person be present, or 
sold from all she loves into some distant land for a 
harlot. From these facts, we see that the churches 
of our day trade in a much worse system of slavery 
than the churches of any other day or time traded in. 
And it is also true that slavery in Protestant churches 
of this day is no better in any respect than in the 
church of Rome. If it be no worse, it is certainly 
no better. 

This text and its context come to the point. God's 
people are not to remain in fellowship with those who 
trade in the bodies and souls of men ; and this the 
members of the slaveholding church of this land do; 
and this these churches do. To remain in such a 
church is to disobey God — to be a partaker of her 
sins — a sharer of her punishments, than which noth- 
ing can be plainer. We see from the several passages 



156 

of scripture which we have examined, that churches 
may become so fallen that christians must withdraw 
from them to save their souls, if their salvation de- 
pends on obeying the plain commands of the Lord 
and of his Christ. 

But at what rjoint does it become the duty of 
God's people to come out of a corrupt church ? This 
is an inquiry of immense importance, and we ought 
to examine it with fear and trembling, lest we do not 
find the truth, and miss our way. Whenever we are 
placed in a position that we cannot obey God we must 
change that position, be it what it may ; and if we 
cannot obey God in the church where we find ourselves, 
when the light of duty shines on our minds we must 
leave that church, and go where we can perform our 
duty. This none can deny who believe the way of 
duty the way of safety — the way of salvation. 

We have seen in the preceding examination, that 
God's people are not allowed to hold christian asso- 
ciations with impenitent trespassers, or to take the 
holy sacrament with slaveholders ; and we have seen 
farther, that they are not permitted to be yoked in 
gospel duties — in O-od's holy service zvith idolaters or 
unbelievers of any hind — that they are to come out 
from these so as not to touch them, as yoke-fellotcs, 
in any of these holy vocations, and that they are to 
have no fellowship with the tvorkers of unfruitful and 
dark ivorks, and to withdraw from every disorderly 
brother, and finally to COME OUT of a church 
which trades in the bodies and souls of men. 



157 

None of these things are God's people at liberty to 
do ; they are positively forbidden to do any one of 
them. Now when my church connections require me 
to do all or any of these forbidden things, I must leave 
that church, for I cannot obey my Maker in it. To 
stay in it is to do what he positively forbids me to do — 
is to transgress a positive command — is to commit sin. 
A church connection which involves me in the com- 
mission of sin was never instituted hj the Savior — 
is not a relation of his church, which was instituted 
to save men from sin, not in sin. 

When a church provides in "her discipline for 
taking such persons into her pale as God's people are 
forbidden to hold religious fellowship with, and re- 
ceives and retains such persons, then his children 
which may be in that church must lea,ve it. And 
when the authorities of a churdi find such persons in 
her pale and refuse to put them out, God's people 
must leave that church. And if his people would all 
obey him, and they surely ought, they would all leave 
that organization, and leave none in it but those who 
have determined not to obey Christ. Such persons 
cannot be the church of the living God, and one of 
two things must be true, those who obeyed God and 
left, took the church of God with them, and did not 
leave it, or he had no church in that organization, and 
therefore they could not leave God's church ; so that 
those who secede from such a church are no sense of 
the word schismatics — the charge of schism rests not 
on them. 

14 



158 

Churches which admit slaveholders into their pale 
as acceptable members are those whom God's people 
must leave to obey their Maker. It is positively im- 
possible to obey God in such a church ; for we are 
positively forbidden to hold church relations with such 
persons, as we have most clearly shown in our previ- 
ous investigation. To this conclusion we are com- 
pelled by the irresistible force of the plainest evidence 
of the word of God. i 

I ask the reader to weigh impartially, and in the 
fear of God, the preceding arguments — see if there 
be any flaw in them — and if this conclusion can be 
resisted, and if it cannot, inquire what your duty is if 
you belong to a slaveholding church ; and when you 
see your duty do it — do it immediately ; you must not 
hesitate, " for he who hesitates between duty and 
inclination is undone." Mark this well ! But if the 
members of your church trade in slaves, as well as 
hold them, you have a direct command from Heaven 
to come out of your church. Will you obey God ? 
Or will you risk the consequences of disobedience for 
the love of party or sect ? Will you ? 

If the members of the different churches of this 
land who believe slavery to be sinful would obey God, 
and separate themselves from all church connections 
with slaveholders, and either unite with the anti- 
slavery churches of this nation, or form others free 
from connection with this monstrous evil, slavery could 
not last long. The light of their undivided testimony 
would be powerful, and the slaveholding churches in 



159 

the free States, or rather that part of theni which are 
in the free States, would soon have to separate from 
their southern brethren, %s they could not keep up 
their organizations ; for as soon as men become con- 
vinced of the sinfulness of slavery they would refuse 
to join those churches, or if in them, would secede, 
and join with some of the anti-slavery organizations. 
This would be the inevitable consequence; and the 
whole church of the free States would be anti-slavery 
in a very short time. Then the days of American 
slavery would be numbered ; for the churches of the 
slave States could not resist the influence of the 
churches of the free States. Their testimony would 
be the evidence of interested parties unsustained by 
any disinterested persons, and this testimony would 
rot in the sight of all honest inquirers after truth. 
The southern churches, if separated from their north- 
ern brethren, would rot, and their influence perish 
with them. ? 

i If I have not mistaken my way in the investiga- 
tion of this momentous subject, the remedy for slavery 
in this nation, is with the anti-slavery members of the 
slavehokling churches ; if they obey the plain com- 
mands of God, this great evil will be removed from 
this land. The fountains of slavery's tears — the rivers 
of her blood will be dried up — the bones she has 
broken shall be made whole, and the crushed and dy- 
ing hearts and hopes of millions shall live ; and Jeho- 
vah's wrath be turned away from this blood-guilty 
nation. And I cannot be more confident of anything 



160 

which is a matter of faith than I am of the correct- 
ness of the positions here taken. I ask our anti- 
slavery brethren to Took af this subject carefully and 
impartially to see if I am in error. Let not one 
breath of excitement touch your heart, or any bias 
of prejudice warp your mind, while looking at this 
awfully important subject ; *and if you cannot satisfy 
yourselves that I am in error, then ask yourselves if 
you love your slaveholding churches more than you 
love Go*i and these millions of his poor. Are you 
willing to go to the Judgment with the blood of three 
milli&ne of slaves an your souls, and you are so going 
as surely as there is a God. Your position is an aw- 
ful one ; you must do more good or harm than any 
other men now living, or perhaps that ever did live. 
For Heaven's sake, for your soul's sake, for the sake 
of three millions of souls and bodies, for whom Christ 
died to make them fellow-heirs with you of life beyond 
this grave, I call upon you to leave your churches. 
Leave them at once ; obey God,, save your country, 
and free the slave — yea, more, much more to you, to 
save your own souls. And here I will leave this mo- 
mentous subject, praying in my inmost heart that you 
may be the men and women for the HOUR. Believe 
me, dear brethren and sisters,. I have never felt on 
any subject as I feel on this. Do suffer this word of 
exhortation, which is but the outpouring of a heart 
full of compassion for the slave and of love for you. 



161 



OBJECTIONS TO LEAVING SLAVEHOLDING CHURCHES 
ANSWERED. 

Objection 1. We are bound to do all the good we 
can, and if we can do more good by staying in a 
slaveholding church than by leaving it, we are bound 
to stay. 

Am. It is true we are bound to do all the good 
we can ; but it is equally true, we can do no good at 
all by disobeying the commands of God. This would 
be to sin against God for the sake of doing good. To 
talk of weighing probabilities of doing good in diso- 
bedience to God's commands, and to admit that it is 
possible to do more good by disobeying the Most 
High than by obeying him, is monstrous in the ex- 
treme. It binds us to disobey God whenever we 
judge we can do good by so doing, or rather the more 
or most good by so doing ; and our frail wisdom is 
made paramount to the wisdom of Infinity. 

Obj. 2. We ought to keep slaveholders. \n the 
church to maintain our influence over them for good, 
and thus make them better masters, and secure the 
privilege of doing good to the slave. 

Am. This abjection goes on the ground that men 
are saved in their sins, not from them— that the meal 
is to change the nature of the leaven, and not the. 
leaven the nature of the meal. Let us apply this 
doctrine to some other sinners.. We will keep drunk- 
ards in the churcli to maintain our influence over them, 



162 

and make them better to their families. We will 
keep adulterers in the church for the same reason ; 
if we turn them out they will give unrestrained indul- 
gence to their passions, and be worse men. We will 
keep thieves and liars in to secure our influence over 
them, and make them good men in the end. This is 
the doctrine which is brought to support church slave- 
holding. And this is not all ; if we should keep such 
characters in the church to reform them, we ought to 
take in such for the ver y same reason,, and extend the 
arm of the church around an unsaved world. Accord- 
ing to this objection,, we ought to have all the sinners in 
the world in the ehureh, to secure our religious influ- 
ence over them. Is this the doctrine of the Savior ? 
No, verily. 

Obj. 3... God owias ancf blesses slaveholding church- 
es,, souls are awakened and converted in them,, there 
are many good people in them,, ought we therefore to 
leave them ? 

Ans. God does not own the church, but his truitk 
that is proclaimed in it. It is the truth that God 
owns and blesses in the salvation of sinners. God 
had^ a people in. Babylon-^hey were< m&die his people 
by awakening and conversion^ They, too, were brought 
to salvation by the outpouring of the holy Spirit ; 
and this was all in Babylon ; and these persons were 
good — were God's people up, to the mosaeat the voice* 
was heard from heaven, "come out of her my peo- 
ple." If good people may stay in a bad church as 
llofi^ a& tb.ere are any good people in it, they will stay 



163 

until there are none to come out — until the leaven of 
wickedness has leavened the whole lump. 

Obj. 4. The church is my mother, and it would be 
ungrateful in me to forsake my mother. 

Ans. God's children are not orphans ; they have 
a father as well as a mother. And they are especially 
bound to obey their father, even God. If my mother, 
the church, go a whoring after strange gods, even the 
gods of oppression,, and become so corrupt that I can 
not follow her and obey my father, God, I must leave 
her and obey my father. The inheritance of eternad 
life comes by my father. I must obey him. And I 
am bound to love my mother, the church, so long as 
she is true and faithful to my father, God, but no 
longer. 

Obj. 5. Mr. Wesley was opposed to secession, and 
preached a sermon against it. 

Ans. Mr. Wesley in his sermon on schism preached 
the very doctrine we have advanced. He says most 
emphatically, that when a church requires its members 
to do something forbidden by the word of God, or 
places them in circumstances in which they cannot do 
"whsat God's word enjoins, or must do what his word 
forbids ; then in that case they are not only free to 
leave that church,, but are bound by the law of the 
Most High to do it, and to do it immediately. See 
Sermon on Schism, Vol. II. p. 155, par. 17. This is 
the doctrine contended for in these pages. We can 
not stay in slaveholding churches without doing what 
God's word forbids, or leaving undone what it enjoins ; 



164 

or both ; hence according to Mr, Wesley's sermon we 
are bound to leave such churches. 

Objf 6. If the fact that the sin of slavery is in 
the church renders it a duty to secede, then the ex- 
istence of any other sin in the church must force us 
to the same result; for the reason must be found in 
the sin, it being a sin to fellowship sinners \ and as 
there is no church wholly free from sin, we can belong 
to no church ; and what is the duty of one is the duty 
of all, on this point, and we can have no church on 
earth. 

Am. Secession is not urged because slavery is in 
the churchy but because it is there by authoritative 
toleration ; because it is knowingly and publicly suf- 
fered to exist in the church by the authorities thereof. 
Did any other sin exist in tlie church under the same 
circumstances, by the same toleration, and equally 
known to the church and to the world, it would be the 
duty of God's people to secede. Suppose an individ- 
ual member of a church knows that another member 
is guilty of fornication, and goes to the church with 
this complaint against his brother, but the proof fails 
to convince the church of the brother's guilt, and the 
accused is retained. This would not justify secession, 
for the church in this case would not sanction forni- 
cation ; for they would expel him if they had sufficient 
proof of his guilt. But suppose the accuser convinces 
the church of the guilt of the accused, and they re- 
fuse to expel him on the ground that fornicators have 
a gospel right to be members of the holy church of 



165 

God. The church in this case would assume the re- 
sponsibility of justifying fornication, and every mem- 
ber who would not share in that responsibility would 
have to secede. This is precisely the ground on 
which we urge secession for the sin of slavery ; it is 
not because it has gotten into the churches of this 
land, and lies there concealed beyond detection, but 
because it is suffered publicly to exist in those churches, 
on the ground that it is right in the sight of a Holy 
God to retain slaveholders in his church. If it can 
be shown that any other sin exists in these churches 
by the same public toleration, it will form another 
unanswerable reason for secession. 

Obj. 7. If we are bound to secede from a church 
because it tolerates sin, we are bound to secede from 
the civil government, for it tolerates sin. 

Ans. The principles involved in the two cases are 
not the same. Membership in church is voluntary — 
in civil society, involuntary. The fellowship of the 
church is when right ; the fellowship of saints, of re- 
generated men and women. The fellowship of civil 
society, the fellowship of all men, saints and sinners. 
The fellowship of the first, the fellowship of the salt 
and light of the world ; that of the second, the cor- 
ruption and darkness of the world. The first is not 
of the world, but chosen out of it. The second is 
the world. We must remain in the world until death, 
we can leave the church at any time. 

Obj. 8. Necessity is laid upon christians to be 
members of the church of Christ. 



166 

Am. This is true, but they can be members of 
his church and comply with that necessity, without 
belonging to slaveholding churches or a slaveholding 
church. There are churches enough in the nation to 
contain all the christians in it which have no connec- 
tion with slavery ; and if there were not, enough 
could be organized, so that this necessity can be met 
without disobeying the plain commands of the Most 
High. 



THE MORAL OBLIGATION OF POLITICAL ACTION. 

The human mind is very liable to fly from one 
extreme to another, and we have a striking and fear- 
ful exhibition of this tendency in the political action 
of professors of religion in this nation. When this 
nation was born, the union of Church and State was 
the great evil of the civilized world. This was the 
great evil on which its young eyes rested, and from 
which its virgin heart drew back. To avoid this evil 
became a leading object — was esteemed a desideratum* 
But the work, though one of apparent ease, was one 
of great difficulty. The minds of our statesmen did not 
properly distinguish between the polity of church or- 
ganization and the great moral principles on which 
those politics were based, and were intended to carry 
into effect. The moral principles on which ecclesias- 
tical polity rests are the same, the very same, on 



167 

which civil polity rests. The principles of both are 
the same, the very same, but the polities look in very 
different directions, though both look to man. The 
design of civil polity is a unit, to protect man in the 
possession of all and every of his natural rights, and 
the more perfectly it does this, the more fully it 
answers the great end of its divine ordination. The 
design of ecclesiastical polity is a unit, to bless men 
in their state of civil protection, and pour over their 
hearts the water of life — gladden their spirits with 
the joys of an immortal hope — purify their souls for 
the fruition of that hope, and carry them onward and 
upward to an eternal home of rest in heaven. The 
design of one is to protect man that he may be blessed, 
the design of the other is to bless him when protected. 
But neither of these polities must be separated from 
the great moral foundation on which they both rest. 
Do this, and God's design in their institution can no 
more be reached than a house can be built without a 
foundation. 

But in separating their designs, and the polities 
needful to secure those designs, there is constant dan- 
ger of separating from the principles on which those 
polities rest ; and as they both rest on the same, the 
danger in this case is found in separating the polities 
from the principles on which they rest, and raising a 
structure without a foundation, or on a false or im- 
proper one. This is the great error of this nation — 
one which is rapidly driving it into political Atheism. 
The other extreme is run into; to separate the 



168 

polities^ it was, and still is, judged needful to separate 
the principles on which these polities rest ; and as they 
have the same great moral basis, civil polity is separated 
from moral principle, and consequently from moral 
responsibility ; and so far as we fall into this error, 
we err more than deists, for they believe in human 
responsibility ; we are Atheists. And we have fallen 
into this error very extensively; and though the work 
of our nation's redemption from it appears almost 
hopeless, it must be accomplished, or our nation must 
perish ; for the God of Heaven is the "planter and 
builder" of nations, and their " plucker up" and 
u puller down." Political Atheism is the fruitful 
womb of sinful political conceptions ; it has given 
birth to some of fearful proportions, and is still big 
with others, which are struggling with each other for 
priority of birth. The sentiment that the Almighty 
Ruler of the Universe has no right to govern in State 
affairs — that we are not bound to consult his will in 
matters of civil polity — is the very poison of perdition 
itself. It is clearly saying to the God of the Universe, 
" Thou shalt not rule over us;" and a nation who re- 
jects God as its moral governor rejects him as its di- 
vine protector ; and it cannot be saJd of such a nation, 
" Happy art thou, Israel ! who is like unte thee, 
people saved of the Lord !" And in the struggles 
which sometimes take place between nations, such a 
nation may sometimes be victorious ; this is no proof 
of divine protection, though so regarded, for nations 
have generally, if not always, attributed their victories 



169 

to their God ; l>ut of divine displeasure on tlie other., 
for disregard of his authority. 

We would not be understood as favoring, in the 
most remote degree, the union Of civil and ecclesias- 
tical polities, but of maintaining a living union between 
them and the great moral principles on which they 
are based. We regard civil government as an insti- 
tution of God, and not a device of man. This insti- 
tution has a great moral 'basis and a definite design. 
Its grants of power are from God, and nothing can be 
rightfully done but what is in the bill of divine charter. 
All men are equal, and majorities have no right to 
control minorities further than God has granted them 
authority. He is the God of both, and the rights of 
both are hi3 gifts ; and their rights are not only lim- 
ited by his grant, but secured also. Civil rulers arc 
as much bound to regard the will of the Almighty as 
are ecclesiastical rulers ; and for the majority to take 
from the minority a single God-given right, is to rebel 
against God — to commit a grievous political sin. 
Civil government is bound to protect man in the pos- 
session and enjoyment of every right bestowed on 
him by his Creator, and it sins against its divine 
founder when it does not do it ; but when it reaches 
forth its hand to snatch from man the rights bestowed 
on him by the Creator, it enters into direct conflict 
with the great I Am, and must in the end either re- 
pent or perish. The will of God is as clearly the 
ruling principle in civil government as in ecclesiasti- 
cal, and still they ought not, must not be united — 
15 



170 

cannot be without great damage to one or both ; for 
although they have a common life, they have not the 
same object or end. The first ends where the second 
begins, and therefore cannot go with it one hair's 
breadth without going beyond its own proper work ; 
and the work of the second lies all forward of where 
that of the first ends ; and for this reason never 
can do anything in union with the first without leav- 
ing its own appropriate work and sphere, and going 
back of its beginning place and outside of its char- 
tered limits. They cannot do their appropriate work 
together, and therefore ought not to be united. The 
first lifts up the weak from the power of the spoiler, 
and stands him on his feet in full possession of his 
God-given rights ; and forbids any and all, in the 
thunder tones of almighty power, not to humble him 
again, or take from him even to a shoe-latchet of what 
has been bestowed on him by his Creator ; and there 
stands over him with the drawn sword of its power, 
to smite any who dare to disobey. The second then 
pours upon him the joys of salvation, — brings over 
his spirit the baptism of a heavenly life. But the 
first must protect that the second may bless ; and as 
it is impossible to do their appropriate work in union, 
we forbid the bans of matrimony. 

Civil government is an institution of God, and so 
is ecclesiastical ; they have a common origin — children 
of a common parent, under the same parental govern- 
ment, though assigned very different work ; and as 
God's law forbids the marriage of brothers and sisters, 



171 

we forbid the bans between these parties, on the 
ground of consanguinity, as well as for want of union 
of work. 

But those who disclaim against the union of Church 
and State are practically uniting them, or trying to 
do the work of both by one. Politicians are trying 
to make civil government the instrument of blessing 
man by making banks and tariffs, rail-roads and ca- 
nals, &c, &c, taking the money of one man and giv- 
ing it to another, without the consent of its rightful 
owner ; this is governmental robbery in the sight of 
God ; and in other countries the sword of civil pro- 
tection is placed in the hand of ecclesiastical power ; 
both are equally opposed to God's plan of governing 
men. Civil government has no hand of benevo- 
lence ; ecclesiastical government has no sword of pro- 
tection. We have much coarser ideas of civil govern- 
ment than many others. It was made to protect — to 
keep off aggressions, not to bestow favors. It has 
none to bestow — can have none, unless it steal them. 
God has assigned this work to another agency. Man 
is one great family, under the protection of a common 
parent, and civil government is the watch-dog of that 
parent, placed at the door of his habitation to guard 
him from all harm. But ecclesiastical polity is placed 
in that habitation to pour blessing over his heart. 

This view of civil government may be considered 
too restricted to secure the interests of society. It 
could not carry on the public improvement of the age. 
But where, we inquire, do the many get the right to 



172 



touch the rights of the few ? Not from the Bible, 
■which contains the charter of civil government ; not 
from the Declaration of Independence, which declares 
men have certain inalienable rights, of which they 
can never be rightfully dispossessed by any agent. 
What cannot be done by individual and associated en- 
terprise must be left undone. Admit the principle 
that the majority may take from an individual, or the 
minority, a single right which the Creator has invested 
them with, and the principle is admitted on which all 
despotisms rest. The rights of the few must give 
j)lace to the advantages of the many — not the rights- 
of the many ; for rights bestowed by the Creator 
never conflict. The old doctrine that civil government 
is a human association, for mutual benefit, and that 
men in going into it have to give up some of their 
rights to obtain the security of the rest, is the infidel 
foundation of all despotism. It sets aside the Bible r 
the charter of civil government, and excludes- from it 
the authority of God, its great institutor and gov- 
ernor, and makes the will of the ruling power of the 
association the umpire to decide how much of natural 
rights must be given up for the good of the world. 
This ruling power is sometimes a single individual, as 
in absolute monarchies ; sometimes in a few — a king 
and nobles ; sometimes in the rich, as in oligarchies ; 
sometimes in the hands of base majorities of repre- 
sentatives, as in republics ; and sometimes in the ma- 
jority of masses, as in the simplest democracies ; but 
if the ruling power take from the humblest individual 



173 

the least important right bestowed on him by the 
Creator ; it is not only an act of despotic aggression 
on the sacred inclosure of human rights, but of direct 
rebellion against the Lord most high — an unqualified 
setting aside of his authority as the Governor of the 
Universe, in the governing and blessing of his crea- 
tures. When God's will is regarded, man's rights are 
secured, and there is no other security for them. The 
Bible is the charter, and all the charter, and the only 
charter of human freedom. 

That the claims of the Creator extend as far as 
here specified in the government of his creatures is 
susceptible of the plainest and most positive proof. 
u But I say unto you that every idle word that men 
shall speak, they shall give an account in the day of 
judgment." Matt, xii, 36. " So every one of us 
shall give an account of himself to God." Romans 
xiv, 12. " For God shall bring every work into judg- 
ment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or 
whether it be evil." Eccl. xii, 14. " In the clay 
when God shall judge the secrets of all men by Jesus 
Christ according to my gospel." Romans ii, 16. 
" Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the 
Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden 
things of darkness, and will make manifest the coun- 
cils of the heart, and then shall every man have 
praise of God." 1 Cor. iv, 5. "For we must all 
appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every 
one may receive the things done in his body according 
to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad." 
15* 



174 

2 Cor. v, 10. " Be not deceived, God is not mocked ; 
for whatsoever a man soweth the same shall he reap. 
For he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap 
corruption, but he that soweth to the spirit shall of 
the spirit reap life everlasting." Gal. vi, 7, 8. 
" Behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me 
to give to every man according as his work shall be." 
Rev. xxii,. 13,. i 

Here we see that the claims of God extend not 
only to our works, but to every work, and to every 
idle word,, even to every secret thing ; and the very 
thoughts of the heart— its secret "councils;" and we 
also see that man never loses his individual responsi- 
bility— >each must give an account for himself — re- 
ceive the reward of his own works. We do not lose 
our individual responsibility when we act with others, 
either in Church or State. No ! no ! the claims of 
God are ever on us — on us in all the relations of life; 
and his law contains directions for our conduct, and 
by them we must be governed. 

! We may greatly, very greatly, increase our respon- 
sibility, by acting with others, but we never can di- 
minish it. Never ! If ten men unite and commit 
murder — take the life of one man, human laws would 
hang them all — take ten lives for one life ; and this 
would, be the case with twenty, or any greater num- 
ber, within the power of the law to punish. But if a 
number, too great for the law to overpower, were to 
unite to kill one man,, or ten men, or one hundred, or 
one thousand, they would go unpunished, through the 



175 

weakness of human laws to punish them ; but that 
would make no difference in the eyes of the Almighty, 
who can with equal ease subdue one million as one, to 
the claims of his law, and will as certainly do it as he 
is God. From his righteous judgment there is no es- 
cape — there can be none — there ought to be none. 

But in what principle does the murder of one 
man become increased in magnitude so as to require 
the lives of ten, twenty, or one hundred, or one thou- 
sand, to make legal satisfaction ? If it had been 
committed by one man, his life would have made legal 
satisfaction. In the sight of the law, one life can 
make satisfaction for one murder if but one person 
be engaged in it ; but if there should be more than 
one, each one is equally guilty, because each one is 
equally consenting to what is done. When ten men 
commit a murder, each man of the ten consents in his 
heart to do the deed, and does what is necessary for 
him to do to effect it, and is just as guilty as if he 
had done it all himself; his heart consented to the 
whole, and that consent involved him in the guilt of 
the whole — each one became guilty of all the whole 
did, because he consented to the whole. When a 
large number of persons meet for evil purposes, or if 
united for good ones, undertake some great work of 
evil, each individual is guilty of all that may be done, 
though it be ten or ten thousand times as much as 
his individual powers could accomplish. It is not 
more than his individual heart could and did consent 
to, and he did all in his heart — he is guilty of it all 



176 

in his heart. The consent of the heart is what the 
divine law recognizes as the doing of the act. This 
is plainly taught by the Savior in Matt, v, 28, where 
the lustful look is pronounced adultery in the heart ; 
and this is also recognized in human laws, and is the 
principle on which ten or twenty men would be hung 
for the murder of one. They would all be guilty in 
their hearts. The heart can consent to a thousand 
times more good or evil than our limited powers can 
accomplish ; and the law of God recognizes that con- 
sent as a doing of ail that good or evil in the heart, 
and will judge us accordingly. How terribly awful 
then are the consequences of uniting with a multitude 
to do evil, either in Church or State. The evil done 
is not divided by the number engaged in doing it, and 
each one held accountable for his pro rata share, but 
each is guilty of all that was done by all, for he con- 
sented in his heart to all ; he did all in his heart. 
We would do well to look at our political connections 
and the responsibility of our political actions in the 
light of these great moral truths ; and all will do it 
who are not political Atheists. 

The great evil of slavery is the creature of law, 
or legal sufferance. Jurists have defined it to be a 
legal violation of man's natural rights. Slavery is a 
creature of law, and can only exist by the force of 
positive statute law. It is unknown to the law of na- 
ture, the law of nations, the common law, or the re- 
vealed law of God. The property relation of slavery 
is found no where outside of statute law j not so with 



177 

property in other things. Goods, chattels and lands 
are recognized as property by all laws. The right 
of property in these is prior to statute laws ; these 
may extend some regulations to it, but cannot cre- 
ate it. 

If slavery be a sin, those who create and sustain 
that sin are guilty of it. And as this sin is made 
and sustained by law, those who make and sustain 
that law are guilty of this sin, than which nothing 
can be plainer. And that it is a sin of fearful mag- 
nitude we have seen. Over three millions of this na- 
tion are robbed of their God-given rights, and placed 
where they can neither employ their powers in their 
own service nor that of their Creator ; for it must be 
distinctly kept in view, that slavery places the slave 
where he cannot obey God. Slavery takes the slave 
from under the will and law of his Creator, and puts 
him under the will and law of his master, be that will 
what it may ; it is the law of the slave's life. The 
master's will rests upon the slave from the cradle to 
the grave, with a positive absoluteness known in no 
other case under heaven. Slavery is the perfection 
of despotism — the monster-birth of rebellion against 
God on earth. To take one soul for whom Christ 
died from under the law of his Creator, and away 
from the knowledge of his Redeemer, and place him 
where he dare not even spell out the name of Jesus 
from the sacred word of life,, is doing all that possibly 
can be done to destroy the soul. No greater offense 
can be committed against the soul of man, or against 



178 

its Creator and Redeemer, except murder ; and slavery 
does this in the case of three millions. To go to 
judgment with the guilt of one resting on tine spirit 
would be fearful, but to have all the guilt of these 
millions is fearful and awful in the extreme ; and this 
is the case with all those who act with those political 
parties who politically sustain the system — the thing. 
They consent in their hearts that these millions shall 
bleed and die under this terrible crushing despotism, 
rather than the harmony and success of their political 
party should be hindered. It is impossible for us to 
see how such persons can be saved, unless it be on 
the ground of ignorance. 

The great political parties of this nation do not 
propose to do anything against slavery ; this all know 
that know anything of them. They may claim that 
they do not intend to do anything for it. This is not 
enough. The evil exists, and we are bound not to 
consent to its continuance, and this we do when we 
consent to the laws which give it being — consent to 
their continuance. We are morally bound to act po- 
litically for the repeal of those laws, for slavery will 
exist while those laws exist. 

To illustrate this point — the slavery of the State 
of Kentucky exists in her laws. Those that passed 
these laws were guilty of the enslavement of the 
slaves then enslaved ; but the very next Legislature 
had power to repeal those laws. Had that power 
been exercised for freedom and the right, slavery 
would have lasted but one year, but they refused or 



179 

neglected to do it; and thus consented to what their 
predecessors did, and become equally guilty with 
them. Perhaps we can make the point still plainer 
by supposing a case. Say the present Legislature of 
this State pass a law to sell all the citizens of Rich- 
land and Wayne counties into slavery to pay the State 
debt, and the arm of the State enforces that law, and 
we are all sold. The buyers know that the next Leg- 
islature will have full power to repeal that law and 
restore us to freedom, and they buy us in full view 
of this fact. Should the next Legislature repeal that 
law, they do the buyers no wrong — they take from 
them no property they had in us, even by an unjust 
law. They only bought an unconditioned right of 
property in us to the meeting of the next Legislature, 
and that they have enjoyed. Their property in us 
after that time depended on the will of the Legisla- 
ture ; we were bought subject to the contingency of 
that will. Hope might have been entertained that 
the Legislature would not repeal that law, and more 
might have been given for us by reason of that hope, 
but this could not affect the right to repeal the law. 
Should the next Legislature refuse or neglect to re- 
peal the law, our enslavement would continue, and 
they would be just as guilty before God as the one 
was that enslaved us. But any succeeding one would 
have the right to repeal the law and free us without 
touching any right the law of our enslavement gave our 
masters. All the right the law give them in us was 
subject from first to last to the contingency of the 



180 

legislative will. And this is the case with all 
slavery — always was the case — always must he the 
case ; for the power which creates can destroy. 

But in a country like ours, where the people make 
the laws through their representatives, the sin of 
wicked laws rests on them equally with their repre- 
sentatives. When the people want certain laws, they 
elect men who they know will vote for such laws ; and 
when they want certain laws repealed, they elect men 
who they believe or know will vote for such repeal. 
And should their representatives pass a "law which 
they do not like, they will make the repeal of that 
law a political question, and send men to the Legisla- 
ture to repeal it. If the Legislature should pass a 
sinful law, the people must make the repeal of that 
law a political question, and those who may vote for 
the repeal will be clear of the sin ; for they have 
done what they could to undo the wrong, and those 
who may vote for the continuance of the law, or who 
do not vote for repeal, do what they can to con- 
tinue the law, with all its evils — commit all its evils 
in their hearts, by consenting in them to these evils. 
This is a fearful crime ; political wrongs are awful 
wrongs ; they are the concentration of many actors 
to commit a great act, and each actor brings the guilt 
of the whole on his soul by consenting to the whole. 
In the supposed case under consideration, it would be 
the duty of the people to make the repeal of the un- 
just and wicked law, under consideration a political 
question, all, every man who has a vote, would be 



181 

morally bound to cast his vote for the repeal ; in no 
other way could he free himself from the guilt thereof. 
And he would have to do this as long as the law re- 
mained. It is not a matter of choice whether we vote 
or not. God has put into our hands in this nation a 
portion of political power, and he holds us bound to 
do good with it. It is not enough for us to say we 
cannot effect the object, and therefore it is not worth 
while to vote; we have a prior and a more important 
object to secure — more important to us — to free our 
own soul of the deep and damning guilt of that wicked 
law, and let its curse rest on those who might choose 
to approve of it or let it remain. Anti-slavery men 
are bound to vote against slavery to free their souls 
from its deep — its awful guilt. ► [ 

The way in which this can be done remains to be 
considered. There are three political parties in this 
nation. The Democratic, Whig and Anti-Slavery, 
composed of two divisions, Free Soil and Liberty 
Party Anti-Slavery voters. They differ in relation 
to the means to be used for the removal of slavery, 
but its removal from the country is a primary object 
with both. But neither Democrats or Whigs propose 
to do anything against slavery ; its overthrow is not 
among the articles of their political creeds ; no person 
can do anything against it by acting with them. 
Anti-slavery men, who act politically with either of 
them, give up acting against slavery ; for they put 
their political power in the hands of a party who 
they know will not use it for the removal of this great 
16 



182 

evil from trie land ; and in so doing they say the sin 
may remain, so far as they are concerned. Do these 
persons believe there is a God and a Judgment day, 
and that they must meet these wronged, crushed and 
dying millions, in that day, and hear the Judge say, 
" Inasmuch as ye did it unto these poor friendless lit- 
tle ones, ye did it not to me." Reader, weigh this 
matter well before you cast another vote ; God will 
bring thee to Judgment. Is slavery a great and cry- 
ing sin, and are you a professed follower of Jesus 
Christ, and will you do nothing, yea, worse than noth- 
ing, to remove it from the land ? Will you ! ! If you 
unite with those who do not make action against it a 
part of their policy you do nothing ; but if you act 
for it, you are guilty of consenting to its wrongs — all 
its wrongs — -and are going to Judgment with guilt 
enough on your soul to ruin a nation. And if the 
Whigs or Democrats are doing anything for it, and 
you act with them, you consent to do for it what they 
are doing for it; for you give them your political 
power to use it for their party purposes, and your 
giving it is consenting to have it thus used. This is 
a plain case. 

These parties passed the Fugitive Slave Law, one 
of the most horrid enactments that darkens the stat- 
ute book of any nation ; it is unparalleled in enor- 
mity. We say they passed it. The members of both 
houses of Congress who voted for it were of both 
these parties. More of the one than of the other 
may have voted for it, but it was not passed by a 



183 

party vote, nor could it have been ; and those who did 
vote for it, did not lose caste with their parties ; they 
were as good Whigs and Democrats as ever. And 
now that it is passed, neither of them take grounds 
for its repeal ; many members of each are opposed to 
the law, but the parties, as parties, are not opposed 
to it. Its repeal is no part of their political creeds. 
It is impossible to secure its repeal by acting with 
them, for neither of them would repeal it if they 
could, and both of them acting together will not do 
it. So far from one of them doing it, there is not 
opposition enough to it in both of them to secure its 
repeal. They are in action for that law, say what they 
may in words. But we are morally bound to do what 
we can for its repeal if it be sinful ; and that it is, 
thousands upon thousands of both these parties be- 
lieve. Those who thus believe are bound to use their 
political power to secure the repeal of that hell-born 
statute ; and as they cannot do this in their present 
political parties, they are morally bound to leave them, 
and go where they can do it ; and as their salvation 
depends on discharging the moral obligations which 
rests upon them, the salvation of their souls depends 
on leaving those parties. We ask the reader to ex- 
amine this subject in the fear of God, and see if he 
can avoid this conclusion in any fair way. We are 
confident he cannot ; and if he cannot, will he sacri- 
fice his eternal all to the god of party ? Will he dis- 
obey God at the behest of party. Christian, will you 
do it ? dare you do it ? For your soul's sake, weigh 
well this subject. 



184 

« 

♦,* But you are ready to plead that you cannot secure 
the repeal of this statute by acting with the Free Soil 
or Liberty Party, for neither of them have strength 
enough to do it ; and as you cannot secure its repeal 
by acting with them, you act with the others to secure 
some other important good. This is the very best 
plea that can be entered, and we give it a careful 
consideration. 

It may be true that you cannot secure the repeal 
of this statute by acting with anti-slavery men for this 
object, but you can try ; and you cannot even do this 
by acting with either Whigs or Democrats ; for if you 
act with them you must do what they are doing — you 
cannot do what they are not doing while you are act- 
ing with them in what they are doing ; this is utterly 
impossible ; and as neither of them is trying to secure 
the repeal of this statute, you cannot try to secure it 
while you act with them. By acting with anti-slavery 
parties you can not only honestly try to secure the 
repeal of this wicked statute, but you can free your 
soul from the awful guilt of the same, which is of 
infinite importance to you ; but this you cannot do by 
acting with Whigs or Democrats. The point for you 
to settle, in view of your final account, is, will you 
free yourself from the awful responsibility of that 
statute, or will you support its supporters, and thus 
bring its tremendous guilt on your own soul ? The 
hour is at hand, readers, when this point will outweigh 
a thousand times the interest or success of your par- 
ties. The immense importance of this question may 



185 

be now obscured by the blinding influence of party 
zeal ; but the day and the hour will soon be upon you 
that will give to it an eternal importance in your esti- 
mation. Oh ! eternity bound spirits ! look at this 
awful subject in the light of your final account, and 
tear yourselves away from atheistical political parties 
who say in their political actions, " There is no God !" 

The North, as we showed in a former chapter, has 
power to free every slave in the nation in a very short 
time, without occupying any disputed or doubtful 
ground, and thus dry up the river of tears which is 
fast filling the vials of the Almighty's wrath, and the 
showers of blood which are crying day and night in 
the ears of the God of the poor and oppressed, and 
sending up blood-stained vapors from the ground, 
which are clouding our skies with gory mantles, the 
proper conductors of Jehovah's wrath to our guilty 
nation. And come it will, unless we repent. 

But neither Whigs or Democrats propose to adopt 
a single policy that would in any way lead to the free- 
dom of the slaves, presently, or even remotely, much 
less those constitutional measures which would free 
the nation from this awful crime in a few years. The 
prohibition of the internal slave-trade would soon free 
every slave— to stop the extension of slavery would 
do the same in a comparatively short time, and both 
would be a blow under which slavery could not exist 
but for a very short time. That Congress possesses 
power to do both has been admitted by our best 
statesmen from the formation of the government. 
16* 



186 

And Congress has acted on the provision of the Con- 
stitution which authorizes the prohibition of the mi- 
gration or importation of certain persons after 1808, 
and prohibited the importation of slaves; and the right 
to do so has not been called into question in any 
quarter to the present time ; and the power to prevent 
the migration of slaves, from place to place in the 
country, is as full and clear as the power to prevent 
their importation. It is expressed in the very same 
language, and has priority of position in the sentence. 
The exercise of this power would break up the inner- 
state slave trade, and give slavery a death-blow ; and 
the right of Congress to do so is not questionable — 
has not been questioned. But neither of these par- 
ties propose to exercise any of these constitutional 
powers, or do the least thing under the heavens to 
free this guilty nation from this sin and element of 
political ruin. The blood and tears of three millions 
of souls, redeemed by blood divine, fall unheeded in 
their sight ; and their shrieks and cries appear to be 
music in their ears, while they dance to their party 
gods ; indeed they are the music to which the dance 
is shuffled. Christian, is such a party the party for 
you? 

But this is not all. They are ready to adopt any 
policy slavery may need for its perpetuation. Witness 
the compromise measures, and the present adoption 
of the principles of that compromise as the platform 
on which both parties must go in the next Presidential 
election, Mr, Cass, the leading aspirant for noinina- 



1S7 

tion by the Democrats, has been careful to set him- 
self right in the eyes of the slave power. Mr. Fill- 
more and Mr. Webster, on the part of the "Whigs, are 
the great champions of the slaveholding interests ; and 
even Gen. Scott, the Whig favorite of the free States, 
is the avowed friend of the compromise. In a letter 
lately written to a friend at the South, he not only 
claims to be among the early friends and firm sup- 
porters of that infamous set of measures, for the ex- 
tension and perpetuation of slavery, but that they 
could not have passed Congress without his aid. 
Every candidate named by either party is in favor of 
that heaven-daring iniquity. The Whigs in the free 
States are trying to hide from anti-slavery men the 
position of Gen. Scott, and a mighty effort will be 
made to get them to sin against God and humanity in 
voting for him should he be nominated. 

If slavery be a sin, we cannot vote for any party 
who will not do what they can to free the nation from 
that sin without being partakers of it, we do less than 
we can to free the nation from it. We support the 
supporters of sin, which is supporting it; and thus 
we become guilty before God of all the tears and 
blood shed by the foul system, for we consent to it 
in our heart, not for its own sake, it may be, but for 
the sake of party ascendency, which may not be of a 
cent's interest to us, or even to the country. We do 
worse than Esau ; he sold his birthright for a mess 
of pottage, and he got it ; but we consent to keep the 
birthright of three millions from them, and heap on 



188 

them burdens such as no other human beings ever 
bore, and get nothing for it at the present ; but we 
will receive our reward in the awful day of God. 

We say of no advantage to us or the country, for 
we have had several changes of the administration 
of the government, without any perceptible advan- 
tage or disadvantage to the country. Both parties we 
regard as occupying the same ground, and the friends 
of the common country, so far as political atheists 
can be. The great questions which formerly divided 
them are now lost sight of; old issues have been ob- 
literated, and no new ones have been gotten up. The 
government has immense patronage to bestow, and 
the successful party can enjoy it; and the masses 
have no interest in the question which of them shall 
have it. We regard both as occupying substantially 
the same ground, and the interests of the country 
about as safe in the hands of one as the other ; we 
would not give one shilling for choice ; and this con- 
clusion is the result of long and careful examination. 
AVe are aware that party leaders try to make the peo- 
ple believe that the salvation of the country depends 
on their being placed at the helm ; if the other party 
should get or retain the helm, the ship of State will 
be run on rocks or quicksands, and ruined ; and we 
are as w T ell aware that they do not believe them- 
selves, but if they can make the people believe it 
they will get their votes, and obtain place and office. 
The device takes with thousands, who, like Uzza, are 
putting forth their hand to steady the ark, and sin 



189 

against the Lord Most High by doing wickedly to 
save the country. A man might as well go to hell for 
salvation. 

It may he plead, and you will doubtless hear it 
plead, that if you vote for either branch of the Anti- 
slavery party, you will throw your votes away. Ad- 
mit it for the present ; you will throw the guilt of 
slavery from your soul at the same time, and stand 
acquitted before God of aiding the oppressor, and se- 
cure the advocacy of crushed millions with their 
Father and your Father, with their God and your 
God, for your admittance into that home where the 
wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. 
But vote for those who give their power and your 
power to the oppressors of mankind, and these mill- 
ions will stand up in bar to your admission ; their 
now speechless grief will be eloquent then ; their tears 
and blood, which now fall unheeded, except by a few, 
and their scarred backs and benighted souls will all 
speak then with fearful power, and place their united 
curses on their oppressors, with all their aiders or 
abettors, you among the rest ; and all heaven will 
shout aloud, Amen ! It is not throwing away our votes 
to throw all these from our souls, and secure the ad- 
vocacy of all these to plead for admission among the 
loved ones above — more, the advocacy of our advocate 
and final Judge, and to hear him say, " Inasmuch as 
ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, 
ye did it unto me." Nothing but political atheism 
can hold men in slaveholding political parties. But. 



190 

reader, remember that for all these acts God will bring 
thee into judgment. If our political actions pertained 
only to this life there might be some force in the plea 
of losing votes, but inasmuch as we must meet them 
in the Judgment day, the plea has no force. We 
must vote so as to do God's will, and if that will aid 
our party, be it so ; if not, let party sink. God's 
will must be done by us, or we must sink under his 
displeasure. We cannot escape — we cannot ! 

It is always best to do right, and if anti-slavery 
men and christians had refused from the commence- 
ment of the anti-slavery struggle to defile their souls 
with the blood-guiltiness of the pro-slavery parties of 
the nation, they would now have the control of this 
question, and could secure the freedom of the slave 
and the redemption of our beloved country in a very 
short time. The great prize now to be won on the 
political chess-board of this nation is the Presidency. 
The President has offices to bestow, either directly or 
indirectly, the salaries of which amount to over thirty 
millions of dollars in every Presidential term of four 
years ; and the party who can get the President, can 
get from him the offices and this immense sum of 
money. The South will vote for no man who is not 
fully in their interest, and no party can get the Pres- 
idency without the South ; and to secure this the 
South must be propitiated. Put if the anti-slavery 
party had strength enough to secure the Presidency 
to either of the other parties, both would instantly 
adopt our principles, and the day of freedom would 



191 

dawn. The slave would lift his head, and hope would 
give health to his sick heart ; and this would be the 
case this day and this hour, if all who believed slavery 
to be a sin had voted against it, and thus freed them- 
selves from its awful guilt. The christian must do 
right, and trust consequences to God. 

But you may be farther told that if the oppressors 
do not get their way, they will sever the union of 
these States, and cause the sun of our proud nation's 
prosperity to set in a sea of fraternal blood. What 
of it ? Shall we sin against God, even to save our 
own lives ? Verily, no ! Duty is ours, consequences 
are God's. The oppressors are going to ruin now, 
and they can do no more if we do not go with them, 
threaten what they may. Their case is now hopeless, 
and they cannot make it more so ; and we must let 
go, or perish with them. There can be no escape for 
"us but in atheism, and can we go there, christian 
brethren ? Can we ? But all these threats are naught 
but political tricks and management to carry points. 
The South would not leave the Union if they could, 
and they could not if they would. They could not 
maintain a political existence with three millions of 
slaves in their midst, with the feelings of humanity 
everywhere against them ; and a mighty pent up sym- 
pathy in the heart of the nations of the earth for the 
slaves, and as near them, too, as England's West In- 
dia Isles, and the northern Republic of the United 
States. This the South knows. And the free States 
of this nation will never give up the freedom of the 



192 

Mississippi to a Southern Republic, or any other for- 
eign power under heaven. This nation cannot divide. 
Its necessities, to say nothing of its conveniences, 
bind it together by indissoluble bonds. Its dissolution 
is not thought of by any except a few cracked-brained 
political fanatics. 

The Anti-slavery party makes the abolition of 
slavery its primary object, and proposes to use such 
means as will certainly effect it if they had the power 
to apply them. To act with this party is to act 
against slavery ; of this there can be no doubt. Here 
we bring our power fully to bear against this evil, and 
free ourselves from the guilt of supporting it, but this 
we cannot do by acting with any other party, or by 
not voting ; and if this blood spot is not wiped from 
our nation, it will be the fault of those who vote with 
the Whigs and Democrats, or do not vote at all, and 
not with those who vote with either division of the 
anti-slavery party. We regard it as a moral obliga- 
tion to vote against the crying sin of slavery, as we 
can do this by voting with the anti-slavery party, and 
no where else ; we regard it as a moral duty to vote 
with that party. We do it to save our soul. 

Repentance is God's prescription to sinners. Those 
who sin must repent, or eternally perish. This is one 
of the plainest doctrines of Revelation. And to re- 
pent is to leave off sinning — to cease to sin. If 
slavery be a sin, it is a political sin. The injustice 
has been imposed on the slaves by political action. 
The chains of slavery have been voted on the slaves, 



193 

or their enslavement by force without law has been* 
sanctioned by laws; and by those laws of sanction 
they are held, and will be held, so long as those laws 
are unrepealed. The repeal of those laws is repent- 
ance for passing them, and nothing else is ; and their 
repeal is political action ; hence the only repentance 
for the sin of slavery is political action ; there is no 
other, and those who refuse to repent of sin must 
perish ; and those who refuse to act politically on the 
sin of slavery refuse to repent, and must therefore 
perish. 

But it may be plead by some that they had noth- 
ing to do in passing these sinful laws ; be it so. They 
have much to do with their repeal. Were we to throw 
a child into the water and you stand where you could 
lift it out without danger to yourself, it would not do 
for you to plead that you had nothing to do with put- 
ting the child in, and stand and look on until it 
was drowned, and then attempt to justify your- 
self on the above principle. You are bound to save 
life when you can do so without endangering your 
own ; and if you do not do so, you are verily guilty 
before God and man of consenting thereunto ; and 
that consent makes you a murderer in jour heart just 
as much as we are who threw the child in. Others 
threw the slaves into the whirlpool of despotism, where 
they perish by thousands yearly, and we have it in 
our power to lift them out ; if we do not do it we 
consent unto their death in our hearts — are murderers 
in our hearts, as much so as those who threw them in. 
17 



194 

Reader, the claims of God and humanity are upon 
you to vote for the freedom of the slave, and you can 
do so without injury to yourself or country, in any 
way ; and if you do not do it, fearful, fearful will he 
the account you will have to render at the Judgment 
of the Great God. 

' It is contended by some that moral suasion, in 
contradistinction to political action, will do the work — 
a correct public opinion without such action is all 
that is needed. Some take this position who claim 
the front rank in the anti-slavery hosts, but there is 
no force in this assumption. It is delusive. If a bare 
majority were brought to vote for the redemption of 
the slaves, the work would be done, but all, or nearly 
all, would have to be brought to do justice and love 
mercy, before the work could be effected on this prin- 
ciple ; for as long as the laws authorize slavery, men 
will be found base enough to avail themselves of the 
provisions of those wicked laws. And this is not all. 
Each slaveholder who would free his slaves would 
have to sacrifice the pecuniary consideration of what 
his slaves would sell for, but thousands and tens of 
thousands of voters would not have to sacrifice one 
, cent; and as soon as a majority of those could be 
gained who have no pecuniary sacrifice to make in 
voting for the slave, the laws would be repealed, and 
the whole system end. But, on the other principle, 
all would have to be converted to justice, mercy, and 
the love of God, against their pecuniary interest ; and 
it is often said that it is difficult to see through a 



195 

silver dollar, and not said without some truth. We 
say, on the voting principle, we have no pecuniary 
interest to blind the eyes and prevent the perception 
of the truth ; for there are not three hundred thousand 
persons in the whole nation who have any pecuniary 
interest in slavery ; so that we have not only a ma- 
jority who have no pecuniary interest in slavery, but 
forty-nine fiftieths who are in this condition. And if 
the truths set forth in these pages were brought before 
their minds, they would feel their force and would act. 

We are free to admit that a correct public opinion 
would do the work in a very Bhort time, or we would 
rather say a correct public conscience ; but how 
would it do that work ? By repealing all laws giving 
life to slavery by political action. If men felt that 
their salvation was involved, as it really is, in the 
continuance of slavery, they would soon rally to the 
battle-cry of freedom, and the power of the oppressor 
would be broken. 

Some contend that the constitution of the United 
States is pro-slavery, and we cannot vote under it 
without giving aid and comfort to slaveholders. But 
suppose for the sake of the argument that the consti- 
tution is pro-slavery, and has been the instrument by 
which the slaves have been pushed into the whirlpool 
where they are perishing, would it be a choice to leave 
them there, over pulling them out with the instrument 
they were pushed in ? This is the naked question, 
stripped of all disguise. The constitution authorizes 
action that would soon put an end to slavery. Shall 



196 

we take that action or let slavery continue, with all 
its woes, until such a moral renovation shall be pro- 
duced as will leave no one base enough to avail him- 
self of the slave laws to oppress his fellow-man ? 
This, to our mind, is an exceedingly dark prospect ; 
and as we have sinned under the constitution, either 
by perverting it or legally using it, we can see no way 
to avoid the guilt of impenitence but to repent under 
it ; for we cannot repent in any other way ; for if 
men were to become so good as not to use the power 
given them, no thanks to those who gave it, and who 
continue the gift of power to do wrong, they would 
still be guilty before God. Turn the subject as we 
may, we cannot get free from the moral obligation to 
repeal those laws, and this repentance is political 
action. 

But we deny that the constitution is pro-slavery. 
We have no sympathy with those who teach that the 
constitution of our country, or the Bible of our God, 
gives power to enslave the wife of our bosom, or the 
children of our love ; and if no grant is given to en- 
slave our wife and children, none is given to enslave 
any other man's, for neither knows anything about . 
the color of the human being. 

And now, christian reader, what course will you 
pursue ? Will you give your power to parties who 
give their strength to the oppressor ? Will you aid 
to give the mighty screw of despotism another turn, 
that is now not only crushing the hopes and joys of 
millions to death, but their heart and flesh to pomace ? 



197 

Shall the blood of millions of hearts stream afresh to 
elevate some favorite to the Presidency ? Stop for 
one moment, and let your mind run forward to the 
Judgment Day, and meet this fresh stream of life- 
blood there, to roll over your guilty soul, and then 
ask yourself, " Dare I meet the awful consequences 
of a vote for those who favor this terrible iniquity ? 
Dare I ?" And may God help you to escape from the 
entanglements of atheistical political parties. 

All that we have said on the moral obligation of 
voting for the overthrow of slavery will apply with 
equal force to the overthrow of intemperance. There 
is no political party who gives its power to the de- 
stroyer, though intemperance is sustained by political 
action. Laws have been passed authorizing men for 
a small sum to follow the business of human destruc^ 
tion, and others have followed it without license, but 
these laws were not party measures ; and it is not, in 
this state of the question, necessary to make it a party 
question. But if intemperance be an evil, and we 
conceive it would insult the intelligence of our read-* 
ers to undertake to prove that it is, civil government 
is bound to protect society from it ; that is its object, 
its divinely assigned work. And every voter i3 mor- 
ally bound to vote for that protection ; he has no 
choice in the matter, but to disobey God and die. 
His Maker requires him to use the power he possesses 
as a member of civil government, for the protection 
of society from all harm, and will hold him to a strict 
account for the use he may make of it. What then 
17* 



' 198 

shall we do to save ourselves from blood-guiltiness in 
this matter ? Vote for no man who will not give all 
his power for laws to perfectly protect society against 
this evil. 

The Maine law has so far protected society more 
perfectly than any other that has been tried ; and for 
the present ought to be the rallying point ; and christ- 
tians, yea, all men, are morally bound to withhold 
their votes from any candidate for the State Legisla- 
ture who will not vote for a similar law, in this and 
every other State, and to vote for men that will. We 
are as much bound not to vote for the first as we are 
not to swear, and to vote for the second, they being 
right on other moral questions, as we are to pray. 
We say all men are thus bound, though many refuse 
to comply with their obligations, and say with Pha- 
raoh, " Who is the Lord, that I should obey his 
voice?" yet the obligation rests upon them, and they 
will surely have to respond to it in the terrible day 
of the Lord. 

Look at the drunkards' heart-broken wives — look 
at their sad countenances, and eyes red with weeping. 
Look at their half-starved and ragged children, as 
they hide from human view, and weep alone in sad' 
ness, and exclaim in their young hearts, " Oh ! that 
my father was not a drunkard [*' Have these — all 
these, no claims on society ? Must they be sacrificed 
to the drunkard's thirst and the drunkard-maker's 
avarice ? Has their God and our God laid us under 
no obligation to protect them ? Surely he has, and 



199 

he will hold us to a strict account. But we are 
not only bound to protect them, but ourselves 
also. The children of the drunkard are raised in 
ignorance and vice, and thrown upon society as moral 
miasms, and we are bound to protect ourselves and 
our children from such an influence. 

In doing this we do not touch the rights of any 
man or party, for rights have their foundation in 
God — they are his gifts, and he never gave any man 
a right to injure his fellow-Lcin;:' : there is no such 
right — there can be no such right. And whatever 
business injures society, no matter how sanctioned by 
human laws, is wrong, and the laws which give it 
sanction wicked, and of no moral obligation, and their 
makers and supporters are rebels against God, and 
oppressors of men, and on the high-road to eternal 
death. The Almighty has ordained human rights, 
and civil government to protect human beings in the 
possession of those rights ; and when it fails of this 
end it becomes wicked just to the extent it fails, and 
its wicked provisions are not morally binding. They 
cannot be, for there can be no obligation to do wrong ; 
this is impossible ; for the Maker of us all has placed 
us on a common level, and imposed on us the obliga- 
tions which rest upon us, and the perfections of his 
nature makes it impossible that any of these imposi- 
tions can be wrong ; and we cannot impose obligations 
on each other, for we are all equals ; one has ho more 
authority than another. There is no obligation to 
sin — there can be none. Those who bound themselves 



200 

by an oath to kill Paul were not bound to keep that 
oath, but to break it ; their salvation depended on 
their breaking that oath. No human solemnities can 
make wrong right or right wrong, the distinction be- 
tween them is as eternal as God. Political atheism 
is the ground of all trouble on these points. God is 
rejected from the government of society, and human 
caprice and cupidity seated on his throne; and the 
shout raised, " These are thy gods, people of the 
Lord, Most High !" And, strange to tell*, D. D.'s 
shout a long and loud Amen ! 

Nor is human liberty abridged by prohibiting 
intemperance by law, for the charter of human free- 
dom is a charter to do right. God gave man liberty 
to do right, and he is to use his liberty — not to abuse 
it. Society has a right to restrain any abuse of hu- 
man freedom, and we cannot have a right to do what 
others have a right to prevent us from doing. This 
principle is now admitted and acquiesced in by those 
who make such an outcry that the Maine law would 
take their liberty from them. We are not allowed to 
injure the property or person of another, in certain 
ways — to violate female chastity ; a man is not allowed 
to take the life of his wife or child, or even his own ; 
and if men are pursuing a course which gives any 
evidence of insanity of mind, though ever so harm- 
less, and his family is likely to be brought to want 
by such a course, the court will appoint guardians to 
take charge of his property, and have it preserved 
for his family. How much better it would be to cure 



201 

his insanity, and leave him possessed of its manage- 
ment. 

Drunkenness is not only insanity, but madness, 
which beggars the drunkard's family, and ruins him 
soul and body ; for the drunkard shall not inherit the 
kingdom of God. And must not the drunkard's fam- 
ily be protected by law, and his wife preserved from 
death, through fear of abridging his liberty ? Shall 
not his insanity, yea, madness, be cured — his property 
thus preserved ; his wife and children not only pro- 
tected, but blessed, and his soul and body preserved 
from the drunkard's grave — from the drunkard's hell, 
lest the liberty of murderers and madmen should be 
abridged ? Such objections can have no weight but 
with political atheists, who believe there is no power 
over man in civil government. But christian, this is 
not the case with you ; God has given you power to 
do something to prevent the overflowings of the de- 
structive tide of intemperance, and you must use that 
power or incur his displeasure. 

Some of our readers may think we are meddling 
with politics, and out of our sphere as a religious 
journalist. To this we plead a denial ; the preacher 
of the gospel of Christ is to teach the doctrines of that 
gospel — teach all men their duty as moral beings ; 
and if ever this country perish it will be because its 
moral teachers do not preach all the gospel. Man's 
duty as a member of civil government is seldom pre- 
sented ; hence church members and others do not 
even dream that the claims of the Almighty are on 



202 

them at the ballot box or in the legislative hall. This 
great truth must be known and felt by this great na- 
tion, or its ruin is inevitable. The pulpit and the re- 
ligious press must teach man all his duty, as a moral 
being, in civil as well as in ecclesiastical relations. 
The strength of truth is its divine connection; and 
no man can be in church what God intends him to be, 
without being in the state what he intends him to be. 
The perfection of the whole depends on the perfect 
connection of all the parts. 

We are aware that the mad-dog cry of the union 
of Church and State will be raised by interested po- 
litical atheists, but we settled the croaking of this 
raw-head and bloody-bones in our commencement, and 
refer the reader to what is said there as our refutation 
of this objection. 

We are aware that our claims to public attention 
are very humble — we belong not to the schools of the 
philosopher — have no honorary distinction — have no 
large or influential religious party to give their influ- 
ence to our humble productions, but we are confident 
they are true, and what the present state of society 
wants. Hence we sow in hope, expecting to reap at 
the Judgment Day. 



203 



THE NORTH AND SLAVERY. 

What has the North to do with Slavery? And 
what is to be done with the slaves when they 
shall be tree ? 

• 

The questions which stand at the head of this ar- 
ticle are asked by many, with an air of confidence, 
when anything is said in favor of the abolition of sla- 
very, which shows that the inquirers think them un- 
answerable. We propose to show that the North is 
not only guilty, but principally guilty for the present 
existence of slavery in this nation ; and that when the 
Lord shall make requisition for blood, the garments 
of the free States will be found stiffened with gore ; 
and also what will be done with the slaves when freed. 
What abolitionists proposed shall be done. 

1. What has the North to do with Slavery f This 
is a very important question, and we will try to give 
it a careful consideration. We must understand how 
slavery is created and sustained before we can see the 
connection the North has with it. It is now admitted 
by all jurists and statesmen of any standing, that sla- 
very is the creature of statute law, and exists by the 
positive force of such law, and by nothing else. This 
is undisputed ; hence, we will not consume time in 
proving it. This is true of slavery every where. In 
the District of Columbia and the Territories of the 
United States, slavery exists by the force of laws 
passed by Congress, or by some other legislative bodv : 



204 

and adopted by the national legislature — laws over 
which Congress has entire control, and can annul or 
repeal at pleasure. We lay this down as an admitted, 
undeniable, and incontrovertible proposition. 

We inquire, how are laws passed and repealed, 1 
made and unmade by the National Legislature ? By 
a majority of both houses of Congress, and the appro- 
val of the President. This all know who know any- 
thing on this subject. One house is composed of the 
representatives of the people ; the other, of the rep- 
resentatives of the States ; and the President is 
elected by the people. The free States have a large 
majority in both branches of Congress, and about fifty 
more electoral votes for President than the slave 
States have. From this it is evident that the free 
States have the power to make the President and 
Vice President ; i. e., the veto power and the casting 
vote in the Senate ; hence, the free States have the 
power to repeal all the laws in the District and Ter- 
ritories, not only without assistance from the slave 
States, but in defiance of them. But this is not the 
case with the slave States ; they cannot repeal those 
laws without northern aid. This is a plain case. Now, 
we inquire, who is to blame for the existence of an 
evil, those who can prevent its existence, or those who 
cannot ? The answer to this question will settle the 
point under consideration, so far as sectional guilt i3 
concerned. We look on all parts as equally guilty ; 
but when we attempt to make the guilt sectional, then 
we say the North is principally guilty. 



205 

There were 30,438 slaves, according to the census 
of 1840, in the District of Columbia and Territories, 
25,717, of whom are in Florida, 11 in Wisconsin, and 
16 in Iowa, notwithstanding the ordinance of 1787, and 
the balance 4,694 in the District. All these were held 
by laws which Congress can repeal at any time — which 
the free States can repeal without one vote from the 
South. 

But we will be met with this plea ; the guilt of 
slavery rests on the masters who hold the slaves in 
bondage. They are guilty, we admit ; but they are 
not the only persons guilty. We will illustrate this 
point. A. and B. are walking beside a river, and a 
lad of ten years of age meets them. A. says to B., I 
want to drown this boy, and every other boy we may 
meet, but my arms are paralysed ; I have no strength 
to catch him or any other, and put him or them into 
the river ; but you can give strength to my arms to 
drown this boy, and continue it, so that I may drown 
all we meet. I wish you to do so. B. imparts the 
needed strength, and A. drowns the boy. B. contin- 
ues A.'s strength, and A. drown3 30,438 boys. A. 
is arrested and tried in a court of justice. What 
think you will be the punishment he is doomed to 
suffer ? You answer he must of necessity be hung. 
Hanging is too good for him. But what shall be 
done with B. ? Why, hang him too ; he is just as 
guilty as A. in every sense. A. could have done no 
evil, had not B. given him the power to do it. Now, 
this is precisely the relation of the State and the 



206 

slave-owner. He could never bold a slave, not even 
for one moment, if the State did not give him power 
so to do. The slave-owner only exercises the power 
the State gives him, and that power the State can 
take away at any time. Now, who is most guilty, 
the State which gives and continues the power, or the 
owners who exercise it ? Judge ye. We say they 
are equally guilty ; but, if there be a difference, the 
State is the most guilty, for it is the primary cause 
and agent. 

But who is the State ? The people — the citizens 
— those especially who have the right of voting. They 
make the laws through their representatives, and 
change them when they please. The representative is 
but their agent ; they are accountable to God for 
what he does. He is accountable to them, as their 
agent, but to God as a moral agent ; and, whenever 
his constituents require him to do what he conceives 
to be sinful, his duty to God requires him to resign 
his office. Should the representatives of the people 
pass a wicked law without the knowledge or consent 
of their constituents, the people in that case would be 
innocent until they could send representatives to re- 
peal that law ; but, if they should take no action to 
repeal that law,. and let it remain in force, they would 
then become guilty. Here their guilt would begin, 
and it would continue until the law was repealed. 
This is the true state of the case. 

From these considerations, it is undeniable that 
the guilt of the enslavement of the 30,438, God will 



207 

require at the hands of this nation. And this is not 
all ; every man who votes for a member to Congress, 
or President, or member to a State Legislature, who 
will not in his official capacity act for the repeal of" 
the laws which enslaves these thousands, is just as 
guilty before God as the southern slaveholder, and 
must as truly repent to be saved. Now, we in- 
quire, what have the voters of the free States been 
doing, lo ! these many years ? Voting for party can- 
didates who have continued these slave laws. They 
were voted for, knowing that they would not lift a 
finger for their repeal ; and thus the voters have 
brought on their own souls the awful — the damning 
guilt of slavery, and ask, at the same time, what have 
we to do with it ? And this is not the worst ; the 
ministers of the Gospel who are sent to warn the peo- 
ple when the sword is coming, have been so fearful of 
corrupting their sanctums with anything that might 
have a political bearing, that they have chosen to let 
the voters of their congregation go to perdition in 
droves, rather than to have anything to say that might 
appear like having anything to do with politics, 
though they, or some of them, could draw on a long 
face, and say prayers over a hickory club or a coon- 
skin convention. But for all these things God will 
bring them to judgment, and awful will be the ac- 
count they will have to render. 

But the people of the free States are not only 
guilty for the slavery that is in the District and Ter- 
ritories, but for the slavery in the slave States. Con* 



208 

gress could have secured the abolition of slavery in 
the States, without attempting to legislate on State 
slavery, or taking any doubtful or disputed position, 
and ought to have done it long since. 

About sixty years since, a member of Congress 
(Mr. Edgar) in a speech made in the House, estima- 
ted the average value of slaves at $15. Mr. Clay, a 
few years since, estimated them at $400 apiece on an 
average. The great and unparalleled rise in the 
value of slaves has kept back abolition in the State ; 
and what produced that increase of value was what 
prevented emancipation. Virginia, Maryland, and 
North Carolina had societies for the abolition of sla- 
very, and some of the leading statesmen in those 
States were engaged in those societies, and expressed 
confident hope that slavery would soon be abolished 
— among whom was Washington and Jefferson. The 
society in North Carolina had forty branches. This 
was a move among the slaveholders themselves. "While 
slaves were worth but little, there was no profit in 
raising them, and the surplus was a burden under 
which the States groaned for deliverance, and labored 
to throw off; but, so soon as the growing of slaves 
became profitable, and a market was opened for the 
surplus, these States gave up the idea of emancipa- 
tion, and their societies died. The policy which in- 
creased the price of slaves was the policy which pre- 
vented emancipation. The writer of this article 
recollects when, in his native State (Virginia), slaves 
brought but from $300 to $500, and then, when they 



209 

brought from $1000 to $1500. Now, if we can find 
what produced this increase in price, we shall find 
what prevented emancipation, and those who caused 
this state of things are guilty of the continuance of 
slavery. We desire the reader's serious attention to 
the investigation of this subject. 

The Constitution of the United States provides 
that " The powers not delegated to the United States 
by this Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, 
are reserved to the States respectively, or to the peo- 
ple." — Ninth Art. of the Con. We call on the advo- 
cates of slavery to put their finger on the clause in 
the Constitution, which delegates to Congress power 
to establish slavery any where, or even to the States 
to do it. No such phrase can be found — no such 
clause exists. In the fifth Article of the Amend- 
ments we have the following : "No person shall be 
deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due 
process of law." And the second paragraph of the 
sixth Article provides that " This Constitution and 
the laws of the United States, which shall be made in 
pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which 
shall be made under the authority of the United 
States, shall be the Supreme Law of the land ; and 
the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any- 
thing in the Constitution or laws of any of the States 
to the contrary notwithstanding." 

The point to be settled is, what does the Consti- 
tution mean by " due process of law f" Three things 
are here linked in this connection — life, liberty, and 



210 

property. The Constitution points out the process to 
be pursued in the cases of life and property. Trial 
in open court, and by jury, is secured in both cases. 
See Art. 3 of the Constitution, and 7 of the Amend- 
ments. Where there is a charge of crime, the facts 
charged must go to a jury, and the same is true in 
any case which relates to property of over $20 value. 
The crime charged may affect the liberty of the per- 
son arraigned, in which case he must be tried before 
a jury of his country, and have power to compel the 
attendance of witnesses, and also the benefit of coun- 
cil. This is the process of law pointed out in the 
Constitution itself ; and less than a compliance with 
its own provisions cannot be a " clue process of law," 
in the meaning and intent of that instrument. The 
Constitution gives the process to be pursued, in all 
cases of arraignment, where life, liberty, or property 
is involved in the issue ; and a proper observance of 
this process is a " due course of law" within the mean- 
ing of the Constitution, than which nothing can be 
plainer. 

The term person is the next point of inquiry. 
Are slaves persons, within the meaning of the Consti- 
tution ? The ninth Sec. of the first Art. provides 
that " The migration or importation of such persons 
els any of the States now existing shall think proper 
to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress 
prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and 
eight ; but a tax or duty may be imposed on such im- 
portation not exceeding ten dollars for each person.". 



211 

In the second Sec. of the first Art., we have the fol- 
lowing : " Representations and direct taxes shall be 
apportioned among the several States which may be 
included within this Union, according to their respec- 
tive numbers, which shall be determined by adding to 
the whole number of free persons, including those 
bound to service for a term of years, and excluding 
Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons." 

The term persons, in both places, means slaves, 
and has been so understood, and so acted on by the 
Government from its organization to the present time. 
There is no dispute about the term persons, in both 
these places meaning slaves, there has been none, and 
there can be none ; as to the meaning of persons in 
the representative clause, for they are not free per- 
sons, nor persons bound to service for a term of years, 
nor yet Indians ; and there were no other persons but 
the slaves to which the term could apply, and there 
are no other yet. So that slaves are persons, clearly 
and undeniably within the meaning of the Constitu- 
tion. And so far from being deprived of liberty by 
a due process of law, they have every one been de- 
prived of it without any process at all, due or undue ; 
and consequently their enslavement is a plain, direct, 
and palpable violation of the Constitution. 

It may be contended that the slaves never were 
deprived of liberty, for they never possessed it ; but 
to debar or hinder from enjoying, is to deprive, as 
well as to take from persons that which they have, 
and it cannot be contended that the slaves are not 



212 

hindered or debarred from the enjoyment of liberty, 
and if they are, they are to all intents and purposes 
deprived of it. 

The North has, and always had, power to pass 
laws to carry out the guarantees of the Constitution, 
in favor of liberty in complete effect. The great strug- 
gle of what is called the late compromise, was to se- 
cure the passage of laws to carry out what the slave- 
holders were pleased to call the provisions of the Con- 
stitution in favor of slavery, though that instrument 
does not contain a single provision of the kind. It 
was, and still is, the duty of Congress, to pass laws to 
carry into complete effect the provisions of the Con- 
stitution, laws which would have secured to every in- 
dividual known to that instrument, as a person, the 
enjoyment of liberty, unless he had been deprived of 
it by due course of law, and as the slaves have not 
been so deprived., to have restored them to liberty. 
The North have always had the power, they now have 
it, to do what the Constitution authorizes on this sub- 
ject, " To make all laws which shall be necessary and 
proper for carrying into execution the foregoing pow- 
ers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution 
in the Government of the United States, or in any 
department or officer thereof." — Art. 1., Sec. 8. The 
North has always had a majority, and numbers give 
power. 

But it may be farther contended that the framers 
of the Constitution did not intend that this provision 
should reach to the slaves. We answer, we are not 



213 

bound by what they intended, but by what they did — 
the nation is bound by what they did, not by what they 
might have intended to do. "We are not to go out- 
side of a law to know what it intends, the intention 
of a law is to be gathered from the law itself ; this is 
a fixed principle of interpretation, and any departure 
from it is not only mischievous but ruinous. And let 
the framers of our Constitution intend what they 
may, this clause does reach to the slaves beyond a 
doubt ; for • it reaches to all persons without an ex- 
ception, and slaves are persons within the meaning of 
this great charter of liberty. And if it be better than 
the framers intended to make it, humanity is the 
gainer by their blunder. 

But it ought not to be forgotten that no one, at 
the time the Constitution was framed and adopted, 
expected slavery to continue, and few if any desired 
that it should. To suppose that the sage framers of 
that instrument should make provisions for the con- 
tinuance of what a very large majority of them did 
not wish to have continued is absurd in the extreme ; 
and to provide for the continuance of what what they 
did not believe could be continued was impossible ; 
for it is a fixed law of mind, that we cannot try to do 
what we believe cannot be done ; we may deceitfully 
go through the " motions," but the heart is not in the 
affected effort. The fair and charitable conclusion is, 
that they intended to do what they did do — make a 
Constitution for liberty — to promote its blessing with- 
out the curses of slavery. But let them have in- 



2U 

tended what they may, this is what they did ; and 
we, the people of the United States, are bound by 
what they did. 

It may be still farther contended that the second 
Sec. of Art. 4 provides for the continuance of sla- 
very, and overthrows the above positions, which reads 
as follows : " No person held to service or labor in 
one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into an- 
other, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation 
therein, be discharged from such service or labor ; but 
shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom 
such service or labor may be due." 

To this objection we reply, that this provision 
does not describe either slaves or masters. They are 
not the persons described, and therefore cannot be 
brought within the meaning and legal intention of 
this clause. The persons to be delivered up are per- 
sons held to service or labor under the laics of the 
State from which they may have escaped. This does 
not describe slaves, they are not held to service or 
labor under the laws of the slave States, nor never 
were. There is no service or labor due from them to 
their master in the eye of the law, which their mas- 
ters can legally impose in a way to create legal par- 
ties ; and there cannot be a suit for the recovery of 
a claim of any kind without two parties, and no slave 
can be a party to any civil suit at law in the United 
States. There cannot be one party to a civil suit, 
there must be two, and the claimant is the party to 
whom there is something due. This word due proves 



215 

that it is a civil suit at law. What is due to on< 
party in the eye of the law is owed by the other. 
The claimant is the party in the eye of the law to 
whom the service is due, and the person escaping into 
another State, the legal parti/ who owes that service 
due ;" and by a suit at law, in the State from which 
the second party escape, this service can be in force, 
and on proof that the escaping party owes service to 
the party claiming the same, the claiming party shall 
take the other back to the State from which he es- 
caped, where the claimant can enforce his claim le- 
gally. This is the undeniable meaning of the provis- 
ion. But slaves are not held to service or labor 
under the laivs of any State in the Union ; they are 
every where held as property, just as horses and cat- 
tle are held ; they are every where known in law as 
property, and are called in the law " chattels per- 
sonal ;" and the master's right to work them grows 
out of the fact that they are his property. But the 
laws of the slave States do not bind them to service or 
labor any more than the laws of Ohio hold our horses 
or oxen to service or labor. Our right to make them 
work is found in the fact that they are our property in 
the eye of the law ; but the law which makes them our 
property does no more; it does not attempt to regulate 
or define their services. This is the case with slaves. 
The right of property carries with it the right to make 
them serve. They are not known to the law as per- 
sons held to service or labor, but as persons held as 
property. And there would be just as much propria 



216 

ety in saying an Ohio horse or ox was held to service 
or labor by the laws of Ohio, as to say a slave is so 
held by the laws of Virginia, or any other slave State. 
A slave can no more be a party to a civil suit at law 
than can a horse or an ox. And the service or labor 
due is due under the law of the State from which the 
escaping person came to the claimant, who is called 
" the party" — one party. There must be two par- 
ties, and the escaping person is the other. These 
parties are such in the sight of the law. But as a slave 
cannot be a party in law in any civil matter, any mat- 
ter involving claim, he cannot be a party in this case ; 
and if the slave cannot be the second party ', or de- 
fendant, the first party, or plaintiff, cannot be a slave- 
holder. It is impossible to bring the slave and his 
master within the meaning or legal intention of this 
clause ; and as this never can be done, this provision 
cannot by any fair construction be made to reach to 
the slaves. 

It may be plead that the laws of some of the 
slave States specify the time the slaves may be made 
to work each day. These laws do not impose on the 
slaves any obligation to work that length of time, but 
interfere with the master's authority, and intends to 
prevent him from working them longer. The design 
of these laws are to protect the slaves from the cru- 
elty of masters, as laws in the free States protect 
brutes, by providing punishment for cruelties exer- 
cised on them by wicked masters. But the first im- 
pose no more obligations on the slaves than the second 



217 

do on the brutes. They are laws of protection, not of 
obligation. 

But there are persons to whom it does apply, per- 
sons who come fairly within its description — appren- 
tices and their masters ; these owe service under the 
laws of the States. The father binds his son to a 
mechanic for four years, or until he is twenty-one, 
and the mechanic binds himself to learn his appren- 
tice his art or trade. The apprentice stays with his 
master until he is nineteen, by which time he has ac- 
quired sufficient knowledge of his trade to obtain 
journeyman's wages; he then leaves his master, and 
goes into another State. The master follows him, and 
shows that two years service is due him by the inden- 
ture he holds from the boy's father, proves the age 
and identity of the escaping lad. This lad must be 
given up that he may be taken back to the State 
where he owes the service, and where the party to 
whom it is due can compel it by legal force. All such 
cases are within the descriptions and legal meaning 
of this provision of the Constitution. We do not say 
that there are no other persons to whom this descrip- 
tion will apply ; but we do say that it does not apply 
to slaves. That the angels in Heaven are not farther 
from the description of this clause than are the slaves, 
except they are not men, and slaves are. With this 
difference it might as well be applied to the one as to 
the other. It would be impossible to be human, and 
be farther removed from this description than the 
the slaves are. 



218 

The intention of the framers of the Constitution 
may be again plead as an offset to this view. But we 
are not to be governed by what they intended, but by 
what they did. If the constitution fails to describe 
slaves and masters, as it evidently does, there is no 
power on earth which can rightfully apply this pro- 
vision to them ; they must be described before they 
can be acted on by this clause, j But there is strong 
evidence of a contrary intention on the part of the 
framers. When this clause was reported by the com- 
mittee to the house, it read, " persons held to servi- 
tude." Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, moved to strike 
out the word "servitude," and insert the word, "ser- 
vice" because (he said) the word servitude denoted 
the condition of slaves, and the word service the 
condition of free persons owing service. The motion 
was carried by a very strong vote. Here is a very 
strong proof that they intended to make it what it is, 
a provision to return free persons from whom lawful 
service is due, to some legal party, and not slaves, 
from whom nothing be legally due to any per- 
sons, for they have no civil existence in the laws of 
any of the States. 

But the North could have secured the freedom of 
i he slaves without occupying any doubtful or even 
disputed ground. The ninth section of Art. 1 pro- 
vides that " the migration or importation of such per- 
sons as any of the States now existing shall think 
proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by Congress 
prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and 



219 

eight." The same power is here given to prevent 
migration that there is to prevent importation. The 
first Congress did do this in the prohibition of the 
foreign slave trade, and their right to do so has not 
been called in question ; and the right to prevent the 
inter-state slave trade is given in the same section 
with equal clearness, and with priority of position. 
The expression of this right is as plain as language 
can express anything. This same power is clearly 
expressed in the 8th Sec. of Art. 1, where Congress 
is given power to " regulate commerce with foreign 
nations, and among (not with) the several States, and 
with (not among) the Indian tribes." Under this 
clause, as well as under the migration and importa- 
tion clause, Congress has full power to prevent the 
foreign and inter-state slave trade. And if they had 
exercised the power given by either of these clauses of 
the Constitution, there would not now be a slave in 
the United States. If slavery had been confined to 
the old thirteen states, as it might and ought to have 
been, and could have been without a single southern 
vote, the slave States would have found their supply 
of slaves a burden too intolerable to be born, and 
would have been compelled to free their slaves to get 
rid of them. 

Thus the North, in the exercise of undisputed con- 
stitutional powers, could have indirectly secured the 
abolition of slavery, hushed the groans and dried the 
tears of the millions who are crying to God day and 
night. And this the North could do yet in a very 
short time. 



220 

But Congress has not only neglected to act for 
the overthrow of slavery, but has established it, though 
the Constitution gives it no power so to do ; and thie 
has been the reason which prevented the 'States frorr, 
abolishing it. But it is not enough to say that Con- 
gress established slavery without any authority from 
the Constitution ; they did it in open defiance of the 
letter and express design of that sacred instrument, 
as also of its spirit. The Constitution was ordained to 
"for?n a more perfect union, establish justice (not 
injustice), insure domestic tranquillity ', provide for the 
common defense, promote the general welfare, and 
secure the blessings of liberty to us and our pos- 
terity." Every one of these objects is endangered by 
slavery, and the establishment of it by Congress is an 
open war on the letter, spirit and design of the whole 
Constitution as thus declared. This is a plain case. 

But has Congress established slavery ? Yes, 
verily. The slavery in the District and Territories is 
without authority from the Constitution — exists by 
violation of the expressed design of that instrument. 
The laws which authorize it in these portions of our 
country are unconstitutional, and every one that voted 
for them perjured himself; for he swore as a member 
of Congress to support the Constitution, and voting 
for these laws was a violation of that sacred oath. 
And this is not all ; every man that has taken his 
seat in Congress since those laws were passed took 
an oath to support the Constitution ; but who of them 
has made an effort to annul these unconstitutional 



221 

laws ? We lay it down as a truth that an oath to 
support the Constitution binds us to act against every 
thing which violates it ; and all who swear to sup- 
port it, and yet do nothing against those violations, 
violate their oath ; they do not act for the mainte- 
nance of that instrument. What support does a man 
give the Constitution who stands by and sees it vio- 
lated continually, and never makes the least resist- 
ance ? 

But if w.e go beyond the District and Territories, 
we shall find more, many more instances of the viola- 
tion of the Constitution for the benefit of the few 
slaveholders. Eight new slave States have been re- 
ceived into the Union since the Constitution was 
adopted, — Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Missis- 
sippi, Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas. Many, 
if not all, of these States have been Territories, over 
which Congress had entire control. When Territo- 
ries, Congress established slavery in them, and when 
they applied for admission into the Union, admitted 
them with their slaves. When they were Territories, 
Congress could have abolished slavery in them by an- 
nulling the laws which had been passed before they 
came under the legislation of the nation. Congress 
had no constitutional power to maintain these laws, 
because they had no power to do anything for slavery ; 
and as the laws of these Territories — laws passed 
before they came under the control of the General 
Government — were null when the territories came un- 
der the National Legislature, it required the sanction. 



222 

of Congress to these laws to keep them in being. 
This sanction Congress had no constitutional power 
to give ; hence, slavery in the Territories of the Uni- 
ted States always was, and now is, and ever ivill be, 
unconstitutional. 

But when these territories applied for admission 
into the Union, Congress had power to refuse them 
admission, unless they became free States. This 
none will deny. But this is not all ; Congress was 
bound to exercise that power ; the very design of the 
Constitution demanded it ; and, as Congress has no 
power to do anything for slavery, they have no power 
to admit slave States, for this would be doing some- 
thing for it. 

The larger part of those eight slave States was 
carved out of Territory over which no slave State had 
ever had any jurisdiction. It was purchased by the 
funds of the nation. The Louisiana purchase, and In- 
dian purchases, embrace the far greater part of the 
territories of these States. Thus Congress took the 
funds of the nation, and bought the great south-west, 
and then planted it with slavery. That Congress had 
power to prevent the foot of a slave from being set 
on the nation's territory, none we think can deny, but 
if any should, it is at once proven by the prohibition 
of slavery in the North-western Territory. Congress 
had the same power to prohibit slavery below 36 J de- 
grees north latitude that they had above it. 

AVe now invite attention to the effect of planting 
the great south-west with slavery, and then admitting 



223 

it into the Union in separate States, A market was 
thus formed for the surplus slaves of the old States, 
which raised the average price from $15 to $400. 
Thus slave-growing became a profitable business, and 
deathless spirits were raised for market like cattle, 
and sold like cattle. More, the slaveholders of the 
old States were enabled to sell their sons for bond- 
men, and their daughters for harlots, and get from 
$1000 to $1500 for their own children ; and many of 
them did this very thing ! 

Virginia has received in the last twenty years 
about $200,000,000 for surplus slaves; Kentucky 
more than $100,0000,000 ; and other breeding States 
in proportion. The new States of the South have 
bought over half a million of slaves in the same time ; 
these at $600 each would amount to $300,000,000, 
and at $1000 each to $500,000,000. This, with the 
addition of what has been done in other ways for the 
support of slavery, has enabled the old States to hold 
on to the evil. Had slavery been confined, as it 
ought to have been, to the old States, long before this 
time they would have been compelled to relinquish it. 

The old States have made by the sale of surplus 
slaves, since the purchase of Louisiana, not far short 
of $1,000,000,000. Cut off this source of profit, and 
tax the old States with the burden of the increase, 
from which they have been freed by selling them into 
the new States, and receiving for them at the same 
time the enormous sum above named, to enable them 
to sustain themselves, o.nd what would have been the 



224 

consequence ? They must have abolished slavery 
long since, or, like a millstone round their necks, it 
-would have sunk them to the bottom of the sea of 
ruin. This is a plain case. Nothing can be plainer 
than that the extending of slavery into the new States 
has been the cause of its perpetuation. 

Now, what had the North to do with its extension 
into these new States ? The States now free (we 
mean of the old thirteen) had a majority of two in 
the first Congress — of 42 under the census of 1880, 
and, if we mistake not, 47 under that of 1840, and 
tlic same majority of electoral votes for President and 
Vice-President — from which it is undeniable that the 
North has always had the power to control this sub- 
ject. But this is not all ; the North had a majority 
of two in the Senate of the first Congress under the 
Constitution. The South could not have extended 
slavery one furlong without the aid of the North ; the 
North has always had the power to confine slavery to 
its former limits, and was bound by the Constitution 
so to do. And, if slavery could have lived in these 
limits, let it live ; and, if not, let it die. And if it 
had been thus confined, it would have died, dead, 
DEAD, long since. But the North did not exercise 
that power, but powers not given by the Constitution 
have been exercised, and by that exercise they have 
extended and perpetuated slavery, and not only so, 
perjured themselves for the sake of committing this 
great sin — of bringing the blood of the millions of 
slaves now sighing under their burdens, robbed of all 



225 

that the Almighty Ruler bestowed on them for time 
and eternity, going to the tomb without hope for the 
most part, and by the most afflicting path ever trod 
by mortals. Yea, more, dying by thousands before 
their time. And yet, after all this, we wipe our 
mouths and ask, with an air of self-complacency, 
" What has the North to do with slavery ?" The an- 
swer to this question will be given when the history of 
time shall be given in, and the Lord Most High make 
requisition for blood, then it will be seen that the 
awful evil of slavery has been maintained by the votes 
of the representatives of the free States, and they and 
those that voted for them will stand on the very same 
ground before a righteous Judge that the Southern 
slaveholders will, who had exercised all the cruelties 
of the system, for they enabled him to do it. 

We ask the reader to look at this subject, not as 
a matter of j)olicy, but as a subject you must meet in 
the judgment of the' great day, and ask yourself, in 
view of the account you must then render, if you dare 
ever give another vote for either of the two great pro- 
slavery parties of this nation, who have brought the 
blood of the enslaved millions of our land on this gen- 
eration, either of which have committed sins enough 
on this one subject to sink any number of nations. 
Can you for one moment think of voting for a candi- 
date who would consent for a moment to act for ei- 
ther of these parties ? if you can, do not claim to be 
a believer in the doctrine of future rewards and pun- 
ishments, for it is next to impossible to believe this 



226 

doctrine, and act thus. It must be done ignorant^ 
if done at all, by any true believer in the Holy Scrip 
tures. You may have acted ignorantly heretofore ; 
but you cannot do so hereafter. For your soul's 
sake, look at this awful subject. 

We might notice many other things which the 
North has done to render slavery profitable, and thus 
secure its perpetuity, but our limits will not permit. 
We leave the subject for the present, being fully 
satisfied that enough has been said thereon to sat- 
isfy any impartial mind that the North is chargeable 
before God for the existence of slavery, not only in 
the Districts and Territories, but in the States them- 
selves ; and that northern voters, and their represen- 
tatives, will have to give an account for its existence 
in the great and terrible day of the Lord. 

We now invite attention to the second inquiry, 
What will be done with the slaves when freed ? 

We premise first, in answering this question, that 
colored men are men ; that the slave is a man, and i^ 
endowed by his Creator with all the rights of a man, 
and subject to law, just as other men are, and has the 
same account to give to the same great Ruler, and 
hence must have the same facilities afforded him t< 
render that account with joy ; that the principles of 
the moral government of God make no distinctions 
all stand in the same relation to him ; and he intendi 
that all should be governed by the same laws. All 
human beings, being subjects of law, the laws which 
are adapted to one class are adapted to all, circum 



227 

stances being the same, God having made no differ-* 
ence in the natural relations of his creatures on ac- 
count of class or country, or in their rights. We lay 
these down as self-evident propositions. 

We have every thing done for the management of 
the slaves when they may be freed that is indispensa- 
ble to have done. We have laws now for the govern- 
ment of men of all classes, sorts and kinds, good, bet- 
ter, BEST,— and bad, worse, WORST; and if the 
black man is a man, as all admit, he is somewhere in 
this category ; he is either the best or worst man, or 
somewhere between them ; and the laws now made wilJ 
reach him, and govern him when reached. Those 
who think that laws must be made to govern the 
blacks, when freed, before it will be safe to free them, 
have been misled by the idea of class, and class legis- 
lation, the greatest political heresy of any age. We 
want no class legislation ; the great Lawgiver has* none, 
has authorized none, never intended that any should ex- 
ist. We now have all the legislation we need. There 
might be some laws passed adapted to the new state of 
society which freedom would produce. This doubtless 
would be the case ; but these would not affect the great 
relations of society. All these are now settled in the 
laws we have. All that is necessary is to free the black 
man and make him a subject of law. Govern him by 
law. Reward him for virtuous conduct — punish him 
for vicious ; and we have the laws now to do all this ! 

Let the slave States repeal all their slave laws, 
and all would be done that is essential. Take the 



228 

State of South Carolina, for example, and let the le- 
gislature of that State pass the following act : Be it 
enacted by the General Assembly of the State of 
South Carolina, That all laws of this commonwealth 
creating, sustaining, or regulating slavery, or having 
reference to colored persons, are hereby repealed. 
This bill would put a full end to slavery and all class 
legislation, and place all where the Almighty intended 
they should be placed, in the enjoyment of the same 
rights and privileges, and accountable to the same 
laws. And all this could be done by passing a bill 
of six lines. How easy it is to do right ! And it is 
as safe as it is easy ! More so ; it is always safe — 
not always easy. " Who shall harm you if ye be fol- 
lowers of that which is good ?" , 

This is what we propose to do with the slaves when 
they shall be freed. Freedom will translate them from 
things to men in the eye of the law, and, when we get 
them legal men, we will manage them legally. But a 
cloud of objections rises which requires attention. 

I. If they were freed, they would all run here, 
and we do not want the negroes among us; "for we 
do not like negroes, no how." This is the most po- 
tent objection with many, very many, in the free 
States. We doubt not but that many in the State of 
Ohio believe that if the slaves were freed to-day, 
" every last one" of the three millions would be in this 
State before one month. But, fearful as this objec- 
tion is to many, it is more false than it can appear 
fearful. It is false, every word of it. 



229 

If the colored people "were free, they would not 
come to the free States, and those that are here would 
go away. Of the truth of this we have no doubt ; 
and we ask the reader's careful attention to the rea- 
sons which give us this confidence in its correctness. 

Cast your eye on the map of the United States, 
and you will see that the slave States have more than 
one-third more territory than the free States. Then 
look at the last census, and you will see that the free 
States have over one-fourth more inhabitants than the 
slave States. This shows that the free States are 
double as thickly inhabited as the slave States. Add 
to this, the slave States have the advantage of cli- 
mate, soil, and commerce, and consequently can yield 
labor a better reward. Now, that section which can 
give labor the best reward has not half as many la- 
borers in proportion to extent as the other has. This 
would induce laborers to go there as certain as water 
inclines to run down hill. Nor would laborers incline 
to go from it to the other any more than water would 
to run up hill. This one fact would induce the laborers 
of the South to stay there, and those of the North 
to go and stay with them. 

Were slavery abolished now, it would take as 
much labor to cultivate the South as ever it did, if 
not as many laborers ; and the landholders would 
have to have the labor performed ; for they could not 
live unless their lands were cultivated. They would 
want as much sugar, • cotton and tobacco raised as 
ever, and more, if possible ; for they have never 



230 

raised enough to keep them clear with the rest of tue 
world. They would be compelled to have at least as 
much. i 

But if the colored people come to the North, who 
would do that labor ? The landholders would be com- 
pelled to keep the blacks there, or get whites to go 
and take their places. Now, we inquire, who would 
go to the South to learn to make sugar and raise cot- 
ton, and board and lodge themselves in the murky 
huts of the plantations or quarters at the same time 
— huts without floors or windows, scats or beds ? These 
would have to be their dwellings, at least for some 
time to come, as the landholders are not able to furnish 
others, and cannot board and lodge their laborers in 
their own dwellings, for two reasons. 1. They have 
not room ; they want laborers by the score or hun- 
dred. 2. The plantations are at too great a distance 
from their mansions — often several miles. Will the 
laborers of Pennsylvania or Ohio go there ? No, not 
one. Will the Yankees go ? Not while they can 
make wooden clocks, or a hickory tree is left to make 
into nutmegs. None of these will go ! — not one I 
Reader, do you think they would ? Would you t 
No ! no ! — you would be very clear of it. 

Where, we inquire, would they get laborers ? 
Could they get them from Ireland or Germany ? Put 
twenty Irishmen under a southern overseer, and let 
him attempt to teach them how to make cotton or 
sugar in southern style, and where would it end ? 
They would be the end of him before night ! This 



231 

no one will doubt, who knows the Irish character, or 
who has any Irish blood in his veins. The German 
character is distinguished for patience, but the south- 
ern system of labor would exhaust even Dutch pa- 
tience ; and press a Dutchman until he turns and 
says Ich ivill net, and all is over ; you may give him 
up — not another step will he go? Would English 
laborers go there ? No, reader. John Bull cannot 
be pushed into, or in a southern cotton field. No, 
never. 

But if these, or any of them, would go, they could 
not stand the climate. Put one hundred Irishmen 
on a rice or sugar plantation, and one-half of them 
will be dead or unable to labor in one year. The 
blacks can stand the climate, and the whites cannot. 
Indeed, it is the black man's climate, as proved by 
the fact that the mortality of the blacks in Charles- 
ton, S. C, is but two per cent., while it is seven in 
Boston. We never heard a black man complain of a 
day being too hot in our life. It is plain that tho 
slave States must be cultivated by the laborers who 
are now there, the blacks, or become a wilderness ; 
so that, if slavery was abolished at the South this 
day, the landholders would be compelled to keep the 
colored people there, or abandon "the sunny South." 
This they would not do ; and hence they would keep 
them there, if they could, and this they could do, and 
do it easily too. 

The colored people would not come to the North 
if they were free, if they could do as well where they 



232 

are ; here the climate suits them ; there are the 
graves of their fathers, and there would be the graves 
of their former chains and fetters. Around the first 
they would delight to linger, and on the second to 
dance. 

At the South, there would be more labor to be 
done than laborers to do it ; at the North, less. 
There labor could, and therefore would, pay better 
than here ; there many would be begging for labor- 
ers ; here laborers begging "leave to toil;" there no 
prejudice exists on account of color ; here much every 
way ; there would be no competition ; the colored 
man would have all the labor of the land ; here he 
could get little or none until every white man had what 
he could do ; there a black man would be preferred % 
here a white man. Now, under these circumstances^ 
would the colored people come here, where there is 
comparatively nothing for them to do, and where no- 
body will employ them, while there is a pale face to 
be had ? Or will they stay where the climate suits 
them — where they can survey the scenes of their 
youth — dance on the tombs of their former shackles 
— gaze on the graves of their fathers and mothers, and 
raise to their memories lettered slabs — find more work 
than they can do, and higher wages than can be ob- 
tained in any other place, and where they would be 
rather honored than despised for having a black skin ? 
They will stay ; they will not come here — no ! never 
— NEVER ! What say you to all this, reader ? 

Slaveholders are paying more for labor now than 



233 

is paid for it in the free States. They have to give 
for field hands from the slave-growing States, on an 
average, $1,000 ; and these hands do not last longer 
than six or eight years on an average. Mr. J. Q. 
Adams stated, on the floor of Congress, that they did 
not last over five years. $1,000 for six years work 
would be $166§ per year ; and for eight years $125 per 
year, and all paid in advance too. Add the interest, 
which would be $30 per year, will make the first 
$196}; and second $155. Then add the boarding 
and clothing at $45 per year, and this is a low esti- 
mate, and we have 241§ in the one case, and $200 in 
the other. So that southerners can give higher wa- 
ges than can be given at the North. 

The theory here laid down has become a fact of 
history. There were 386.245 free colored people in 
the nation, by the census of 1840, 216,678 of whom 
are in the slave States, and 160,567 in the free 
States. Now, we inquire, why do not those who are 
free come to the North ? Why is it that there are so 
many more free colored people in the slave States 
than in the free, if they would come here if they were 
free ? In the single State of Maryland there were 62,- 
000 free colored people. Now, if they would all come 
here if they were free, how does it come that those 
who could come with the least difficulty do not come ? 
It may not be known to all that there are laws in the 
slave States providing that all freed after a certain 
time shall leave the State in a given time, or be taken 
up and sold into slavery. The Maryland law, on this 



234 

subject, was passed while we were in that State. These 
laws drive the free colored people from those States, 
and force them to come to the North. Those freed 
before the passage of those laws, and their descend- 
ants, are permitted to remain in many of the States ; 
and these stay with but few exceptions, and few, 
very few, come here but such as are compelled. 

But, if slavery should be abolished, those persons 
of color who are in the free States would, with but 
few exceptions, go to the South. Those who have 
property could sell it and buy landed possessions at 
the South, where they would be free from the sinful 
prejudice under which they are crushed, and take the 
stand in society which their virtues and qualifications 
entitle them to. This would be an inducement for all 
colored persons to go ; add to this, the climate suits 
them better, and there would be more there for them 
to do, and a better reward for doing it, and you have 
the reasons why they would go. 

There are not laborers enough now at the South 
to perform the required labor. This is proven by the 
fact that the internal slave trade is now carried on 
extensively to supply the South with labor ; and if 
slavery should be abolished, the demand for labor 
would increase. The women would not be in the field 
as they are now; many would remain in the - houses 
to take care of their children, and many of the men 
would go to mechanical trades. These would decrease 
the laborers of the field and increase the demand for 
labor. This is the way emancipation worked in the 



235 

British West Indies. Agents have been sent to our 
eastern and southern cities to induce the free people 
of color to go to the Islands to make up the lack of 
labor. And we have no doubt that if slavery were 
now abolished, that before five years southerners 
would visit every colored settlement in the free States 
to induce the settlers to go South. So much for this 
objection. 

II. Another objection is, they would not work if 
they were free. This is refuted by the history of the 
West India Emancipations. There was no difficulty 
in getting the emancipated to work when they were 
presented reasonable inducements. The fact that in 
one year they paid $600,000 for land in Guiana, and 
that those connected with the Wesleyan mission raised 
about $>80,000 in one year for religious purposes, and 
that property has risen in the Islands, so that the 
land will now bring more than slaves and land both 
would in the days of slavery, are enough on this 
point. 

III. But some object that they would kill their 
masters if they were free. This objection goes on 
the ground that men will hate us for giving them 
their rights. Reader, suppose yourself a slave, and 
we your master, and we should sell your wife and chil- 
dren where you could never see them, and make you 
work fourteen hours per day for nothing but as 
much food as would enable you to work, and very little 
clothing, and whip you frequently almost to death, 
and some person should plead with us to free you, 



2S6 

and we should say in reply, " Were we to give the 
rascal his liberty, pay him for his work, and give him 
back his wife and children, he would kill us ; we dare 
not do it !" What would you think of such reason- 
ing ? This is the reasoning of this objection. It is 
a law of nature, that if we would have men our ene- 
mies, do them wrong ; if our friends, give them their 
rights. 

But the West India Emancipations put this objec- 
tion to rest. In some of the Islands, there were from 
fifteen to twenty colored persons to one white, and 
yet not one drop of blood was shed. And this is not 
all ; several millions of the African race have been 
freed by general emancipation, in the Islands and the 
Americas, since the commencement of this century, 
and all without the shedding of one drop of blood. 

IV. It is objected that they are too ignorant to 
govern themselves, and it would not do to free them 
until they are prepared for freedom. 

This objection would prevent emancipation now or 
at any future time ; for they cannot be taught any- 
thing, not even their A B C's, while they are slaves. 
They must be freed as they are, or never freed, for 
they cannot be enlightened until they shall be free. 

But the abolition of slavery would not put out the 
light of the sun, moon and stars at the South. The 
enlightened masters would still be there, and would 
remain there for some time to come. They and the 
colored people could carry on government on the 
principles it has been done in the West Indies and 



237 

other places where slavery has been abolished. This 
objection takes the ground that the whites and blacks 
should be separated the moment slavery ends, which 
is a great mistake. But if slavery were abolished, 
the colored people would soon be enlightened. In 
Antigua, there were one-sixth of the inhabitants re- 
ceiving instruction in schools in the sixth year of free- 
dom. This is more than are now in school in Penn- 
sylvania. This might and would be the case in this 
country. If slavery were abolished, the christian be- 
nevolence of this nation would find a rich field for 
cultivation at its door — one that could be cultivated 
at less expense than any on earth. Then Sabbath 
and other schools could be established, and the col- 
ored people of the South might become as enlightened 
in twenty years as the people of any other section of 
the country, if we would do our duty. Then they 
would be prepared for self-government, should there 
be no whites among them, which would not be the 
case perhaps even then. 

V. It is objected that there is such a prejudice 
between the two races, that they never could live 
on terms of civil and religious equality : " make them 
equal, and they will fight until one or the other be 
destroyed." This objection takes for granted what 
remains to be proven ; but we will notice another that 
is often urged, before we consider this : " Free the 
colored people, and they will at once intermarry with 
the whites, and in a short time we will be a nation of 
mongrels." This would be dreadful, says the ob- 



233 

jector, " I am opposed to amalgamation." Now let 
us hitch these objections together, and see if they -will 
not pull each other to death. The prejudice (hatred) 
between the two races is so great, that if they were 
both, free, they would kill one another, BUT they 
would get married first and then kill. If so, ha- 
tred induces people to marry. This is a queer thing ! 
What think you of it, reader ? 

The prejudice of which we hear so much is either 
natural or the effect of circumstances. If the latter, 
remove the cause, and the effect must cease, and the 
operations of society go on as though all were of one 
color ; if natural, it will continue. Love draws peo- 
ple together ; hatred separates them ; and, so soon 
as the colored people be free, they will incline to go to 
themselves, and the whites to themselves ; the blacks 
will go South to a climate that suits them, and the 
whites will sell out to them, and come North to a cli- 
mate that will make their pale faces bloom as the 
rose. Free the colored people now, and before thirty 
years they would be able to own every acre of land in 
several of the southern States, and they would do it. 
These will be the certain workings of freedom, if 
there be a natural prejudice ; if there be none, tlu-n 
free the colored people, and remove their ignorance 
and degradation, and the prejudice will cease, and the 
operations of society go on as smoothly as if all were 
one color ; so that our plan would work well. 

We incline to the view that the colored race would 
go South, and the white come North, and the working 



239 

of general emancipation would work the colors apart, 
and then our friends who are so alarmed about amal- 
gamation would have to go South to get black hu&- 
bands or wives ; free the slaves, and then nature will 
work the whole matter according to her own laws and 
taste. Emancipation will not only work both ways, 
but every way ; so it must be a good rule. 

VI. Many object to emancipation, unless the eman- 
cipated leave the country. They say, Free them, and 
send them to Liberia, or some other place, and we 
will go for emancipation. This objection is answered 
in the main by the reply to the one just above ; but 
the reader ought to know that the colored people 
never can be removed beyond the limits of the United 
States. We have proved the cost of colonization in 
Africa, and rating the expense in time to come at 
much less than half what it has cost in time past, it 
would amount to eight millions of dollars a year ; for 
one hundred and fifty years, twelve hundred millions 
of dollars. This rate of expense would remove one 
hundred thousand per year, twenty times as many as 
the Babylonish monarch colonized of the Jews by cap- 
tivity. This was the largest colonization movement 
we have any definite account of, and it was less than 
five thousand. But we would have to send off one 
hundred thousand per year, for one hundred and fifty 
years, to get clear of the blacks. This can never be 
begun, much less finished. We might as well under- 
take to build a balloon to go to the moon. 

The colored people must remain in the country as 



240 

free or slaves, and it is with the free States to say 
which. If we withhold national legislation from the 
support of slavery, and leave it to the States, they 
will be compelled to abandon it in less than ten years. 
If they remain slaves, they must remain the enemies 
of the country ; for it is a law of nature to take an 
interest in that which takes an interest in us. No 
man can love a country that does nothing, for him. 
If we free them and give them their rights, they will 
become the fast friends of the country, ready to fight 
its battles, yea, die in its defense. Emancipation set- 
tles the question — will we have the 3,000,000 of 
slaves, who will be six, yea, twelve millions before 
some who may read this tract go to their graves, the 
friends or enemies of the country ? This is an im- 
portant question for the patriot — one involving the 
destinies of this nation and the cause of freedom in 
the world. No one believes that six millions can be 
kept in slavery, such as ours is, much less tivelve, and 
if we do not free them, they will free themselves, or 
perish in the attempt, and we want all to know that 
we believe, with Mr. Jefferson, that Heaven will not 
permit them to perish, and we must, in such a contest, 
sink. The elements are now preparing to take sides 
with them ; the spirit of freedom, now spreading like 
light, will call to their aid, when the conflict comes, 
millions of money and thousands of men ; the sympa- 
thies of millions will be with them. This question 
must be met and settled in our day ! Will we meet 
it with the Almighty on our side, or will we fight 



241 

against him and perish ? Reader, weigh this subject 
well. 

But it is as inexpedient, as it is impracticable, to 
remove them from the country. They are all wanted 
where they are ; the South has not one laborer to 
spare ; and, as it must depend, for a long time to 
come, on colored laborers, if not always, every one 
that is taken away by colonization is impoverishing 
the planters — taking from that section its source of 
wealth — its laborers ; hence colonization always was, 
is, and ever must be, the enemy of that section of the 
country. 

Here we might leave the subject ; but there is one 
other objection urged that is in the way of many. " The 
right of property in slaves." And though this does 
not lie against the workings of emancipation, it is in 
the way of emancipation, and we will give it a pass- 
ing notice. 

We have seen that slavery is the creature of stat- 
ute law ; hence slave property is the creature of this 
law, and must, for this reason, be held by the will of 
the State. These laws the State has a right to re- 
peal, and can at pleasure repeal the laws making hu- 
man beings property. We will illustrate the point. 
Suppose the Legislature of this State were to pass a 
law to sell into slavery every person in the town of 
Mansfield, to raise money to pay the public debts, 
and enforce the law by the power of the State, what 
would be the right of property the buyers would have 
in us ? The right the ^Statc gave them, and none 



242 

other. But what right, we inquire, would the State 
give them ? A right to hold us as property until the 
next meeting of the Legislature, which would have a 
right to repeal the law and set us all free. Now as 
rights never conflict, the rights of the Legislature, 
and the rights of those who might have bought us, 
could not conflict ; and as the first would have a right 
to repeal the law on the first day of the session, those 
who might buy us would have a right to hold us till 
the meeting of that body. If that body should see 
proper to continue the law, or let it remain on the 
statute book, by not exercising their right to repeal 
it, the right of those who might have bought us would 
still hold under the law. But it would be for the 
Legislature to say whether those who bought us should 
hold us one day longer than the first of their ses- 
sion. < 
Slave property is property held, in all cases, by 
the will of the State, and the State has a right to 
withhold that will at any moment ; and the moment 
this is done, the slave is free. This is the true state 
of the case. Not so with other property — it is held 
by laws anterior to all State laws, and of paramount 
authority ; hence the State cannot take our houses 
and lands from us because the Stato did not give 
them. The error of this objection lies in placing pro- 
perty in man on the same basis that property in 
things is based. If the southern States would exer- 
'cise the right to repeal all the slave laws this day, 
and free every slave, they would not violate the right 



243 

of a single slaveholder ; so that slavery can be abol- 
ished at any time the State pleases, without taking 
from the slaveholders one cent's worth of property 
that even the law of slavery gives them. This is the 
true state of the case. 

The abolition of slavery in the way abolitionists 
propose would not invade the right of property, it 
would hold this sacred ; but not only so, it would not 
impoverish the slaveholders — before five years the 
value of the slaves would be transferred to the lands. 
This was the case . in the West Indies, and it would 
be the case here. Land of the same quality in the 
slave States, and having the same facilities of mar- 
ket, will not bring more than half as much as in the 
free States. Abolish slavery and introduce free la- 
bor and the price will be the same. The State has a 
right to abolish slavery though it reduces the slave- 
holders to beggary. They bought and hold their 
slave property subject to this contingency, and they 
can never have any right to complain though they 
should be made poor. They have placed themselves 
where they are. Much less can they complain when 
they would be enriched by taking from them what 
God never intended them to have ; which was given 
them by those who had no right so to do ; who sin- 
ned against humanity and the Lord Most High ; and 
who must repent by taking away what they have sin- 
ned in giving, or perish in this great sin. So much 
for the right of property. 



244 

We hope that those who may read this article will 
weigh well what they read, and act for the peace and 
safety of their own souls. Then -they will act for the 
good of the master, the good of the country, and the 
good of the slave. 









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